Cynthia Barber
Cynthia received her PhD from MIT where she studied neurobiological questions using Drosophila as a model system. She is currently a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Post-doctoral Fellow at Brandeis University where she applies modern electron microscopy techniques to various biological systems.
Articles by Cynthia Barber:
The Many Flavors of Widefield Microscopy
While confocal microscopy seems to have become pervasive in cell biology, widefield microscopy techniques still have a special and important place. This month on the Microscopy and Imaging Channel, we’re focusing on widefield microscopy techniques: covering the basics of what these techniques are and when you should turn to them. What is this ‘Widefield’ you…
That Other Number – The Meaning Of Numerical Aperture In Microscopy
Perhaps while staring at your microscope during long imaging sessions, you have noticed that written on your objective lens is not only the magnification, but also another number such as: NA=1.4. What does that number mean anyway? Meet the numerical aperture (NA for short)! Not a number for the casual user While the numerical aperture…
How To Name Image Files So They Actually Make Sense – The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
I have a dear friend and collaborator whose image file names follow this format: aaaa5kk.tif, aaaa5kkk.tif, aaaa5kkkk.tif, aaaa6p3kkkkkkk.tif, etc. We have collaborated together on several projects, and I dread the days I have to go back through the files and look for a particular image. I am sure that these names have some meaning to…
STORM, PALM And fPALM- The Alphabet Soup Of Super-Resolution Light Microscopy
Why do I see a cloud? When you are looking at protein localization within a cell, have you ever wondered why you see a cloud of fluorescence rather that several individual fluorescent points? Well, light microscopy has a theoretical resolution limit of 200 nm. This means that in theory, to resolve two points as being…