AVS 62nd International Symposium & Exhibition
    IPF on Mesoscale Science and Technology of Materials and Metamaterials Monday Sessions
       Session IPF+MS-MoA

Invited Paper IPF+MS-MoA1
Mesoscale Imaging in Cell Biology

Monday, October 19, 2015, 2:20 pm, Room 210F

Session: Mesoscale Phenomena in the Biosciences II (2:20-3:40) & Metamaterials (3:40-5:40)
Presenter: Gerry McDermott, University of California, San Francisco
Authors: G. McDermott, University of California, San Francisco
M. Do, University of California, San Francisco
J.-H. Chen, University of California, San Francisco
A. Walter, University of California, San Francisco
M.A. Le Gros, University of California, San Francisco
C.A. Larabell, University of California, San Francisco
Correspondent: Click to Email
Soft X-ray tomography (SXT) is ideally suited to imaging the sub-cellular architecture of biological cells. In SXT, specimens are illuminated with 'water window' photons. X-rays within this energy range (284 – 543eV) are absorbed an order of magnitude more strongly by carbon- and nitrogen-containing organic materials than by water. Consequently, the variation in biomolecule composition and concentration within the specimen gives rise to quantitative, high-contrast images of intact, fully hydrated cells, without the need to use contrast-enhancing agents. The utility of SXT has recently been enhanced by the development of high numerical aperture cryogenic fluorescence tomography (CFT) for correlated imaging studies. This multi-modal approach allows labelled molecules to be localized in the context of a high-resolution 3-D tomographic reconstruction of the cell. This talk will describe correlated CFT-SXT and the application of this technique to long-standing questions in cell biology.