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Infrared Beams Show Cell Types in a Different Light

August 23, 2018

Biosciences’ Cynthia McMurray and Mike Martin of the Advanced Light Source (ALS) are spearheading an effort to develop a noninvasive, label-free technique to probe living cells in their native environments to aid in biological and medical research. By shining highly focused infrared light—which doesn’t damage or otherwise alter the cells—they hope to be able to distinguish features within cells and identify individual cell types by their unique spectral signatures. McMurray, a senior scientist in Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB), and Martin, photon science operations group lead at the ALS, received a round of seed money earlier this year to support their effort, dubbed “spectral phenotyping.” An Aug. 8 news article in the journal Science highlighted their work and that of the larger Human Cell Atlas project that aims to provide “a unique ID card for each cell type,” as well as a 3D map of how cells form tissues, and new insights into disease.

Read more in the News Center.

Purdue Students Tour ALS

August 1, 2018

Purdue University Tour Group at ALS

Corie Ralston, head of the Berkeley Center for Structural Biology and deputy director of the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division, and Mike Martin, Photon Science Operations Group Lead at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), led a tour of the ALS for a group of visiting biomedical engineering graduate students from Purdue University. Tammy Siemers, professional development and external relations specialist at Purdue University, arranges yearly ‘career immersion’ tours of companies and other places where graduate students might end up working one day. “The reason I chose ALS (and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in general) is that I knew they were doing research in areas that our students would be interested in,“ said Siemers. “We had a great visit to ALS.”

The tours–which have taken place in Washington, DC, Boston, and Seattle previously–are important for the students to meet scientists and learn more about their options after graduate school. “I also like for students to gain networking skills and to learn about valuable resources and potential collaborations on this tour,” Siemers added. “ALS definitely has some valuable resources for research that we weren’t even aware of prior to this trip.”

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