THOMAS DEERINCK, UCSD MICROSCOPIST

DEERINCK: I grew up in a small town called Stockton located in central California. I have been interested in science since I was a child. My father was an amateur astronomer who even ground his own mirrors and lenses by hand. My interest in microscopy began when I was in high school. A scientist named Dr. Elizabeth Mathews, who had set up a special training program in electron microscopy, came to visit and displayed these fantastic images of things you just couldn't see before. I like any image of the brain. The brain is so intricate, complex, and elaborate that it's fascinating on many levels. I had always been intrigued by diseases like schizophrenia and Alzheimer's.

DEERINCK: The point is to communicate a concept or a finding.An image that is pleasing to the eye tends to more easily capture one's attention. The brain is a particularly good subject because it has such an incredible complexity. In fact, all of nature has an innate beauty that most people don't realize, but which can be revealed with the help of a microscope.

DEERINCK: We, along with all life around us, are amazingly complex creations. Our bodies are made of intricately organized tissues, which in turn are composed of billions of specialized cells, and these cells are ultimately composed of nanoscale micromachines (macromolecules) that are encoded by our DNA. These machines somehow act in coordination to carry out such diverse tasks as metabolism, locomotion, perception and even emotion. In order to try to understand their near infinite complexity, scientists use very sophisticated types of light and electron microscopes that can create images from the whole brain, to a single cell and all the way down to single molecules. The hope is that by understanding their organizational structure, we can gain insights into their function with the ultimate hope of curing disease.

For additional information contact Deerinck directly via email at: deerinck@ncmir.ucsd.edu