Seeing the Unseen

Often chemistry occurs out of sight: the migration of a cancer cell, the motions of molecular catalysts, the transient contacts of proteins, and the reordering of lipids are but a few such examples.  What we miss is important.  The next generation of advances in chemistry hinges on gaining a never-before level of detail through advanced imaging and spectroscopy.  Researchers at UC-Irvine are developing microscopy and spectroscopy techniques to see currently unseen processes and make the invisible visible. Students and postdoctoral scholars involved in imaging at UC-Irvine learn concepts and techniques that span across many “traditional” divisions of chemistry, biology, and physics in order to bring an interdisciplinary pallet of tools to bear on these grand challenges.  

The images you see here are CAARS images of a kidney and a muscle from Prof Eric Potma's lab.