ImPhys MSc student Teun Huijben best Graduate of the Faculty of Applied Sciences
Seeing tiny particles even better through a microscope – student Teun Huijben managed it for his Master’s thesis. As well as a top mark, the breakthrough has also earned him the title Best Graduate of the Faculty of Applied Sciences.
Teun Huijben’s research is about particles so small they are invisible to the naked eye. In fact, they cannot even be seen through an ordinary microscope. You need a special instrument to observe these tiny particles, such as proteins, in a cell. To study and find cures for many kinds of disease, it is important to be able to scrutinise small, individual parts of cells separately. Huijben has developed a smart algorithm which makes this possible.
Apples and pears
Every microscope has a maximum resolution. Beyond that limit, you cannot see your sample any more clearly. But scientists use tricks to try to do just that. “For example,” Huijben explains, “an optical microscope that uses special fluorescence to make certain proteins emit light.” As a result, they flicker constantly, a bit like the indicators on a car or flashing Christmas lights. “Thanks to that illumination, you notice the proteins and can check what shape they are later. If they look abnormal, that could be a sign of disease. So you want to select for that.”
With the old method, this is not easy, since an average is calculated from a very large number of images. Such an approach is certainly smart, because it gives you a sharper image. But the averaging process also means that you overlook abnormal proteins or other deformed cell parts. You can compare it with distinguishing apples from pears, says Bernd Rieger, Huijben’s supervisor and a professor in the research department of Imaging Physics. Those fruits have quite different shapes. “But we look at particles so small that the resolution is not good enough to tell ‘apples’ and ‘pears’ apart. You need several images to be able to discern that.” If you average the images, though, you end up with a picture of something that looks like neither a pear nor an apple.
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