Coming To A Theater Near You
With never-before-seen realism, the horrifying image leaps from the screen, engulfing the hapless viewer. Is it a 3-D Frankenstein? 3-D vampires? No, it's more like a 3-D mitochondria.
By working with computer scientists, physicists, and other biologists, Fredric S. Fay, professor of physiology and pharmacology at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, has developed a technology that lets researchers "walk inside a cell." Digital imaging microscopy (which uses a computer-operated microscope linked to a camera) displays molecular changes through time in two- and three-dimensional images 1,000 times faster than other video imaging systems. Says Fay of this technology, which recently earned the university four patents, "I think the technique will be a very powerful tool" for an array of bioscientists. The new Program of Molecular Medicine at UMMC plans to exploit this technology to study the regulation of smooth muscle in blood...