Shriners Research Center, Portland OR

The electron microscope is a microscope that can magnify very small details with high resolving power due to the use of electrons rather than light to scatter off material, magnifying at levels up to 500,000 times. In the process, High voltage electron beams from a cathode are focused by magnetic lenses on to the specimen. They are then magnified by a series of magnetic lenses until they hit photographic plate or light sensitive sensors - which transfer the image to a computer screen. The image produced is called an electron micrograph (EM). Due the sensitive nature of this equipment, the Research Center maintains it, along with the confocal microscope in the hospital basement. All of the projects at the center continue to benefit greatly from this technology. Here are just a few of the images that have been generated in the past several years.

Randomly oriented collagen fibrils in cartilage extracellular matrix imaged by TEM.
Cartilage cell surrounded by extracellular matrix containing collagen fibrils imaged by TEM.	Enlarged endoplasmic reticulum in cartilage cell from patient with pseudoachondroplasia. The fingerprint appearance is a hallmark of this condition.
Cartilage collagen fibril imaged by rotary shadowing.	Cartilage cell from growth plate of patient with pseudoachondroplasia.