Scanning Electron Microscopy

So...I finally finished summer school a couple of weeks ago. I took Organic Chemistry + Lab and it was amazing! Anyways, I am finally getting around to posting some of the work I do with my research team at Appalachian State. These following images are pretty much the first images I came up with when I was learning how to operate the equipment last fall. These are all images of a common house fly, Musca dominica.

This image shows the multiple hexagonal "ommatidia" that make up Musca dominica's compact eye. What is visible is the actual cornea of the ommatidia. Scanned at nearly 3000x magnification.

This image is showing the area between the head of the fly and it's thorax. Quadrant 2 shows the proboscis of the head.

My Time at Appalachian

I have not done a lot of photography since I left RCC, but I have definitely kept busy. I am apart of research cluster in the microscopy facility here at Appalachian, and below are some samples of images that I have taken with the different equipment up here:

This is an image of BPAE (Bovine Pulmonary Artery Epithelial) taken on a confocal microscope. The confocal microscope uses lasers from different wavelengths to excite particular dyes. These dyes can be "injected" into certain anatomy, and after exciting them with a specific wavelength of light, they become "excited" and visible. Here,the BPAE cells were labeled with MitoTracker® Red and BODIPY® FL phallacidin to show mitochondria and actin filaments.

The Following images are from a compound microscope. These were used in a research presentation for my microscopy cluster at the SNCURCS (State of North Carolina Undergraduate Research and Creativity Symposium)in November of last year. The final poster presentation is shown as the last image.

Clinorchis Sinensis (Human Blood Fluke)
Anterior sucker and oral cavity

Trypanosoma Gambiense (40x magnification)
This little parasite causes African Sleeping Sickness and is contracted from the bite of the Tsetse Fly

Oral Smear (40x)

These are cheek epithelial cells covered in bacteria, with a visible bacteria strain

Fundus Photography - PDR & Asteroid Hyalosis

This is a composite of two fundus images taken of THE SAME patient, a 39 yr. old African female. The left image is ocular dexter and the right image is ocular sinister. I just thought the differences between the two were pretty interesting.

The right eye(left image) shows proliferative diabetic retinopathy(PDR), while the left eye(right image) shows extreme asteroid hyalosis.

ZEISS Fundus Camera

Fundus Photography - Malignant Melanoma

Sorry for the delay in posting, it has been very busy at my internship, and I have been trying to sort everything out for graduation as well.

Anyways, here is an image of a malignant melanoma attached to the retina of the right eye in a 20 yr. old Caucasian male. Another was found in the left eye, but was about 1/20th the size of this one. If you look close enough you can really see the detail within this tumor. The retina itself is out of focus, but only because I wanted focus on the tumor.

ZEISS Fundus Camera

Slit Lamp - Keratic Precipitates

This is a photograph of Keratic Precipitates located on the inner endothelial layer of the cornea. This patient had a bad reaction to silicon oil used after a cataract removal and these precipitates formed.

KERATIC PRECIPITATES: Inflammatory cells and white blood cells from the iris and ciliary body that enter the aqueous and adhere to the innermost corneal surface (endothelium).

What is seen where the lens should be is not actually a cataract, because that was removed, it is actually part of the reaction to the silicon oil building up anterior the lens.

Slit Lamp - Post Traumatic Scleritis

Another Slit-lamp image taken of a patient with Scleritis after trauma. Most patients we shoot on the Slit-lamp are photo-phobic (extremely sensitive to light) because of their anterior pathology, and it is not often you have a cooperative patient. They always pull away after every shot and complain. For this patient, we had to have three people in the room; myself, taking the photos, and two technicians forcing the patients head forward and pulling the eyelids open.
Also, sometimes the doctors will come in the camera room and want to watch, which was also the case for this patient, who was to immediately go into surgery after I finished the photographs. No pressure.

SCLERITIS: Inflammation of the Sclera

Slit-Lamp Camera:
Nikon D100's

Slit Lamp - Pterygium

Below is an image of what is called Pterygium. The "P" is silent.

PTERYGIUM: An abnormal, wedge-shaped growth on the bulbar conjuctiva, often related to sun irritation.

Slit-Lamp Camera:
Nikon D100's

Macular Nevus

This is a nevus located beneath the macula in the choroid layer of the eye.

NEVUS: (Mole) Small, flat, usually pigmented benign tumor made up of specific cells called nevus cells; found in skin and eye tissues.

Zeiss fundus camera

The Operating Room: DSEK

This is a shot taken in the operating room during a DSEK procedure.

DSEK:
Descemet's Stripping Endothelial Keratoplasty.

This procedure is done to replace and repair the tissue of the cornea. Instead of a corneal transplant that damages many endothelial cells and takes a long time to recover from, this procedure takes a donor cornea endothelial layer and places it through a small incision, allowing less recovery time as well as a lot less damage to the corneal cells. The following image shows the step by step process, from the donor cornea in the first image, to the placement and unfolding of the donor corneal layer, to the injection of an air bubble to hold the graft in place for proper healing position.

*This same patient had a cataract removed and an IOL (Intra-Ocular Lens) inserted just minutes before the DSEK procedure.

Nikon D70x
ISO:200
105mm micro w/ PN-ll extension tube
F/16 w/ ringflash 1/2 power

Cataract Composite

This image is a composite of 4 images taken on the slit-lamp camera. Each separate image is called a red-reflex image, because you are lighting the posterior of the eye, and focusing on the anterior lens, so the cataract can be viewed somewhat like a silhouette. So two of the photos were at the nearest plane of sharp focus, while the other two were at the farthest plane of sharp focus. I used Photoshop to mask them together to show the full depth of the cataract.

Definition of Cataract: Opacity or cloudiness on the crystalline lens, which may prevent a clear image from forming on the retina.

Slit lamp: Nikon D100's
ISO: 200
F/22 w/ constant flash

Pyogenic Granuloma

This is an external shot of a pyogenic Granuloma. A breakdown of what exactly this means:

Pyogenic: Producing Pus.

Granuloma: Dense collection of cells consisting of various inflammatory types.

THEREFORE: This is a growth of epitheliod (skin) cells, filled with pus.

Nikon D70x
ISO:200
60mm macro
F/22 @ 1/80

Finally....

Oh blogger where art thou? It's been about three months since I have even looked at one of these bad boys. I decided today that I will begin posting again due to the completion of my biology classes as well as the completion of my college admissions stuff. So in other words, I'm bored.
Most of what I'll be posting from now on is likely to be relative to my internship at Wake Forest University Eye Center as an Ophthalmic Photographer. I am not going to go into depth describing what is in these images, but only simple explanations for easy understanding. I hope everyone enjoys them.
This first image is a fundus(the inside) image of my own eyes. These were taken by David Miller, a co-worker of mine and a graduate of RCC. The photos are in sequence, right eye, left eye. This is also referred to as OD(Ocular Dexter), OS(Ocular Sinister).

Toenail

A piece of toenail just after being detached from the toe. A product of Hematoma, which caused the nail to fall off in its own time. This was shot with Alien Bee strobes, and tissue paper as a soft box. 4:1 ratio.

Nikon D200
ISO: 100
F/11 @ 1/125th
55mm, 227.5 mm extension

"Aeshna Isosceles"

This is Aeshna Isosceles, a dragonfly. I shot this lady with the pb-6 and pb-5 bellows, two extension tubes, and a 105 micro lens. I used Speedo strobes and a homemade soft box to light her, while placing green and red reflective paper under her for accent colors.

Nikon D200
ISO:100
F/22 @ 1/250th
105mm micro w/ 340mm extension

Macro: 1st attempt

This was one of my first attempt shots for our macro-photography course. I used the pb-6 bellows, two extension tubes, and the 105 mm micro lens. In all, there was 280.5 mm of extension. I set up the butterfly with a blue piece of foam board behind, which had white spots on it. I was attempting to have the sky look as if it had clouds in it.

Nikon D200 - ISO:100 - F/22 @1/250th

4x5 flower macro

This is a shot of a Black Eyed Susie I did for Large Format portfolio. I attached 3 4x5 Sinar Bellows together to get the macro affect. I used the Farrell strobe to light it and hotlights to focus. Don't ask how long it took to focus 3 bellows.

Sinar F-1 4x5
ISO:100 T-Max
F/16 @ 64 pops....yea
210mm w/ 3 bellows (1000mm?)

Environmental Portrait: Ann Cutter

This photograph was done for the "Environmental Portrait" in Bio-Communications Photojournalism class. Pictured above is Ann Cutter, a Biology teacher at Randolph Community College. I lit the scene using two vivitar 285's, one front/side lighting the subject, and the other behind the subject with a folded amber gel attached. I constructed the scene to be symmetrical, while still personalizing the subject through her surroundings.

Nikon D200
ISO: 200
F/6.7 @ 1/60
52mm