Up Teeny, Tiny Periscope

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From left, Janetopoulos, Wikswo, Seale and Wright.

Who developed the world’s smallest periscope and why? It wasn’t Q for James Bond—a team of Vanderbilt scientists developed tiny mirrored, pyramid-shaped wells the width of a human hair to get high-resolution, 3-D views of cells and other microorganisms. “Not only can we see the tops of cells, we can view their sides as well—something biologists almost never see,” says Chris Janetopoulos, assistant professor of biological sciences. The interdisciplinary team included researchers from the School of Engineering and the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education (VIIBRE); biology major Charles Wright, BA’08; Assistant Professor of the Practice of Biomedical Engineering Kevin Seale; and VIIBRE Director John P. Wikswo, Gordon A. Cain University Professor. The mirrored wells are less expensive than current 3-D microscopy methods and the periscope has applications in genetic engineering and metabolic studies.

photo credit: Daniel Dubois