The Department of Electrical Engineering at the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE) held a talk on “Beyond the Coverslip - Single Molecule Imaging” on December 27, 2019. Dr Sohaib Abdul Rehman, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Cambridge Advanced Imaging Center, University of Cambridge, UK presented the talk.
Fluorescence microscopy is a valuable tool to visualise biological samples. However, its resolution is limited by the diffraction properties of light to a few hundred nanometres. Localisation microscopy overcomes the diffraction limit of light, giving up to ten-fold improved resolution in fluorescence microscopy. This talk covered the optimised development and application of a localisation based super-resolution microscope. Applications will include understanding the dynamics of a transcription factor for the Notch Signalling Pathway and packaging of chromatin in Drosophila nuclei.
The talk also discussed the application of light field imaging to localisation microscopy, which uses the concept of parallax to obtain three-dimensional information about an object. The technique is very similar to stereo - the method which forms the basis of depth estimation in humans. However, instead of two views, significantly more views are captured. The technique can give up to 20 µm depth of field, compared to 500 nm provided by the unmodified PSF of high numerical aperture objectives used in localisation microscopy.
Dr Sohaib Abdul Rehman, during his PhD at Cambridge, worked on localisation based super-resolution microscopy techniques. He graduated from LUMS with a Bachelor in Electrical Engineering in 2014. He also has a Masters in Integrated Photonic and Electronic systems from the University of Cambridge.
