BUTTE — Montana Tech has a new transmission electron microscope, and this piece of equipment can give researchers a view into a world so small no human eye could ever see it.
“It’s fantastic to get the latest in technology and it allows us to see the very tiniest of things,” said electron microscopist Jim Driver.
The microscope was purchased through a $1 million grant and can see phages, which are viruses so small they infect and replicate within bacteria.
“To see the things that are really most important: the insides of our cells. Viruses that attack our cells, attack bacteria, you need something more powerful and we use electrons because they’re so much smaller than visible light,” said Driver.
This microscope is the latest model and the first in the state and will allow students to identify new phages that can be entered into a national databank.
“It is exciting because they’re contributing new information to the field and they have potential biomedical applications in terms of phage therapy to combat antibiotic-resistant micro-bacterial infections,” said Montana Tech Biology Professor Marisa Pedulla.
How do you use it?
“Well, you move your sample around using the finest in 1980s technology, the trackball,” said Driver.
So you literally have a trackball. See, I’ve used this playing Centipede. Where’s the fire button?
In a K through 12 program, teachers are learning to use the equipment so they can expose young students to this technology.
“It’s a big thing and, so, hopefully, someday, these kids will get a chance to go on and do really valuable research,” said Driver.
