{"id":32304,"date":"2020-09-22T09:48:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T07:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/?p=32304"},"modified":"2024-03-22T11:08:39","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T10:08:39","slug":"potw2038","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2038\/","title":{"rendered":"A bloom of crystals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sometimes hunting a malaria parasite involves a search through a garden of blooms \u2013 crystal blooms, that is. This image, which seems more like fern leaf stencils, represents an impressive combination of electron microscopy with a relatively new software tool, SerialEM. This has helped scientists to zoom in on a lacy bloom of crystals formed on a specimen that contained reproductive cells (gametes) from a type of mosquito called Anopheles<\/em> \u2013 the genus that can carry the malaria parasite. The size of the specimen is approximately 100 \u00b5m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lead citrate, which is used for staining electron microscopy samples, most likely caused the artful bloom. It was captured by Application Engineer Martin Schorb at EMBL\u2019s Electron Microscopy Core Facility<\/a>. Marla Katharina Herr from Heidelberg University Hospital prepared the specimen in collaboration with Marek Cyrklaff from Heidelberg University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin and collaborators wrote about SerialEM software, as well as py-EM \u2013 another new software module they developed \u2013 in Nature Methods<\/a><\/em> in 2019. SerialEM is versatile software to automate control of electron microscopes and cameras. The py-EM module \u2013 a collection of Python functions \u2013 interfaces with SerialEM to create feedback pipelines in specimen-specific image analysis. Py-EM and the applied workflows were developed at EMBL. Together, the two software tools make it possible to image every entity in a specimen (including nearby crystal blooms) in a controlled way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Credit: Martin Schorb\/EMBL<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have a stunning picture of your science, your lab or your site, you can submit it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How does your crystal garden grow? EMBL’s Electron Microscopy Core Facility was able to capture this garden of blooming crystals as they studied mosquito reproductive cells.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":32312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17591],"tags":[136,330,5624,11022],"embl_taxonomy":[3974],"class_list":["post-32304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-picture-of-the-week","category-science-technology","tag-electron-microscopy","tag-malaria","tag-mosquito","tag-spotlight","embl_taxonomy-electron-microscopy-core-facility"],"acf":{"featured":false,"show_featured_image":false,"color":"#007B53","link_color":"#fff","article_intro":"","related_links":false,"article_sources":false,"in_this_article":false,"youtube_url":"","mp4_url":"","video_caption":"","press_contact":"None","translations":false,"vf_locked":false},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[{"uuid":"a:3:{i:0;s:36:\"302cfdf7-365b-462a-be65-82c7b783ebf7\";i:1;s:36:\"ef0437fc-a5b7-4c73-bcfd-63bff16cb35e\";i:2;s:36:\"705050b6-52b5-4218-a953-68fbb6b0964f\";}","parents":[],"name":["Electron 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