Adv Microscopy for Biologists

1 Credit · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

The microscope offers views into beautiful worlds unseen by the naked eye. For biological research, microscopes have traditionally been used to examine static (fixed) cellular and subcellular structures. Over the past couple of decades, dramatic advances in microscope, camera, and molecular labeling techniques have led to a "perfect storm" for biological imaging technology and we are now able to view living specimens with unprecedented temporal and spatial resolution and can even visualize changes in cellular activity. In Advanced Microscopy for Biologists, we will dive into the principles and applications of modern biological imaging approaches. The course will consist of a lecture-based introduction to a microscopy topic followed by interactive analyses of primary literature on each topic. Students will participate in dissecting current papers and building their own sense of scientific inquiry around imaging techniques. As able, we will interface the course content with students' research aims in order to enable students to achieve better mastery of the microscopy applications related to their own research. The primary goal of this course is to enhance students’ current or future research endeavors that relate to microscopy. The scope of this course will mainly involve questions and approaches from a biologist’s perspective; physics and mathematical principles will be limited to overview.