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Microscopic marvels: Seeing the system

Nature volume 459, pages 630–631 (2009)Cite this article

"We don't pretend to have invented new physics," says Ernst Stelzer modestly, standing next to an equally modest layout of lasers, mirrors and lenses. "It has all just been plain common sense."

Stelzer has been applying his common sense to microscopes ever since he arrived at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1983 as a fresh-faced physics PhD student, and stayed on to head a team developing three-dimensional light microscopy. A quarter of a century in the field has now led to single plane illumination microscopy (SPIM), the technique with a modest face but an extravagant view: beautiful and unprecedented moving images of whole organisms as they grow one cell division at a time.

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  1. Alison Abbott
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See also page 629 and online at http://tinyurl.com/microspecial .

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Cell imaging: New ways to see a smaller world

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Abbott, A. Microscopic marvels: Seeing the system. Nature 459, 630–631 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/459630a

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