© Pint of Science, 2024. All rights reserved.
Biology is beautiful. Some of this beauty we can see with the naked eye, however, some beautiful biology is too small for us to see without the help of microscopes. This evening will enlighten you with how microscopes work and the huge variety we use. You can even try some of them out for yourself! You’ll also see how we can use them to uncover patterns in the developing embryo and watch cells as they clone themselves.
Magical mystery microscope tour
Dr Lizzy Brama
(Senior Research Scientist)
“Everyone knows what a microscope is.” That’s exactly what Lizzy used to think until she accidentally found herself selling them to research labs 6 years ago. Turns out there are big ones, small ones, simple ones, and really complicated ones, and they all have a place in science! Find out about how it all started, the tricks researchers have come up with to make microscope technology ever more powerful, and how easy it is to build your own.
Patterns under the microscope - the developing spinal cord
Kat Exelby
(PhD Student)
Patterns are evident in all aspects of nature, from flowers and animal markings to sand dune formations. But what about the patterns we can’t see with the naked eye? In this talk, Kat will tell you about the precise patterns formed by different neurons in the spinal cord as it develops and the research done to understand how individual cells contribute and form this reproducible pattern.
What’s happening inside dividing cells?
Dr Jeremy Carlton
(Group Leader)
Cell division is essential for life, growth and development. Jeremy’s lab uses cutting edge microscopy to unpick the events taking place inside cells during the division process. In this talk you will find out how fluorescent tags are used to illuminate proteins inside cells to study how they are shaped, taken apart and reformed as cells divide.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.