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ASCTech: Not Just The Computer-Question People

November 4, 2013

ASCTech: Not Just The Computer-Question People

Yeast cells at 5000x magnification

Think ASCTech just answers your computer questions? There's more to ASCTech than you might imagine, including support for technology-intensive groups in OSU's largest college, such as the spinning confocal microscope in the Department of Molecular Genetics, which yielded this image. Adriana Dawes Laboratory Post-Doctoral Researcher Valerie Coffman explains it best:

The image shows fission yeast cells at approximately 5000x magnification. The green signal is actin filaments in the cell, and red is myosin. Where both of them coexist, the image appears yellow (for example, at the middle of some of the longer cells). The red appears first as a bunch of dots, then the green comes a little later and helps to pull the dots together into the bar at the middle (which is actually a ring, but this is a maximum intensity projection, so you cannot tell that the middle is empty). The ring will constrict to a dot with cell wall being built behind it as it goes, leading to cell division. After division the cells are about half as long, and they will grow continuously for several hours until they are long enough to divide again. You can see all these stages in this field of cells, because they are not synchronized, so the cells could be in any stage when we look at them.

So when you think technology at OSU, think ASCTech.