Imaging Life at High Spatiotemporal Resolution - Eric Betzig, Janelia Farm Research Campus, HHMI

"As our understanding of biological systems as increased, so has the complexityof our questions and the need for more advanced optical tools to answer them. For example, there is a hundred-fold gap between the resolution of conventional optical microscopyand the scale at which molecules self-assemble to form sub-cellular structures. Furthermore, as we attempt to peer more closely at the dynamic complexity of living systems, the actinic glare of our microscopes can adversely influence the specimens we hope to study. Finally, the heterogeneity ofliving tissue can seriously impede our ability to image at high resolution, due to the resultingwarping and scattering of light rays. I will describe three areasfocused onaddressingthese challenges: superresolution microscopy for imaging specific proteinswithin cellsdown to near-molecular resolution; plane illumination microscopy usingnon-diffracting beams for noninvasive imaging of three-dimensional dynamics within live cells and embryos; and adaptive optics to recover optimal images from within optically heterogeneous specimens."