Undergraduate Students Get an Edge with Advanced Microscopy

Dr. Jerry LaRue is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry who studies catalysts. One real world problem students in his lab work on is how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions which are contributing to global warming. With the right catalyst, the combustion reactions used by the world's petroleum industries could become more energy efficient.  

Plasmonic metal nanoparticles are potential catalysts since they can efficiently generate large amounts of electrons critical to excited state chemistry upon interaction with visible light. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with EDS has been vastly practical and beneficial throughout the course of his photochemistry research. His students study the synthesized single metallic and bimetallic plasmonic nanoparticles to understand their surface structure.

From researching odor detection in domesticated dogs to the study of odor capture by  crustaceans to understanding how valveless tubular hearts drive flow, students in Dr.  Lindsay Waldrop's lab investigate many diverse phenomena.  

In this example, scanning electron microscopy is used to show how the antennae of fireflies may be evolving in response to sexual selection. Most fireflies flash in the evening to attract mates, but some have reverted back to using chemical signals, or pheromones, to attract mates similar to other beetle groups. Since chemical sensors are on the beetles’ antennae, students in the Waldrop lab are imaging antennae to study the size and distribution of chemical sensing hairs on a variety of species of fireflies.

At the Comparative Biomaterials Lab, Dr. Douglas Fudge and his students study a wide range of materials made by animals, including nano-scale filaments within cells, slimes secreted to ward off predators, and large structures like the keratinous plates of baleen whales. They are committed to applying what we learn from the study of biomaterials to real-life challenges, such as how we can make high performance materials for industry that are more eco-friendly in their manufacture and disposal.

Dr. Fudge explains that animals make outstanding materials for a wide variety of functions without the benefit of petroleum and without fouling their environment. He believes that humans could do the same if they listen to the lessons biology has to teach.

Shown here is an example of a hagfish epidermal thread cell imaged using confocal microscopy. Dr. Fudge and his team are studying hagfish  to better understand the remarkable and emergent properties of hagfish slime, one of the most unusual complex fluids found in nature.