Under the microscope

Scientists at the University of St. Andrews have won a £750,000 grant from the EPSRC to develop a new ‘super’ microscope to be used for cutting-edge research into Alzheimers disease and cancer.

The Biophotonics work station will be the first instrument of its kind to offer a wide range of functions for cell research in a single tool. It will allow scientists to image, sort, separate and punch holes into cells as small as 1/100th of a millimetre.

The work will have a crucial role to play in developing technology for the early diagnosis and treatment of range of illnesses.

The new development will draw together research at the University from leading academics including physicist Professor Wilson Sibbett, cancer researcher Professor Andrew Riches and Dr. Frank Gunn-Moore, a neurobiologist investigating how nerve cells are affected by neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimers.

Leading the project is Professor Kishan Dholakia, head of the Optical Trapping Group at the School of Physics and Astronomy, who is pioneering a number of cell- based research techniques based on light.