Beam me up, Scotty!

This is catch phrase from Star Trek, which sums up what the PALM Microbeam IV does to a specimen on a slide. A laser beam cuts a specimen out on a glass slide (example: the mitochondria -- that's where all the carbohydrates are "burned" when people exercise -- can be removed from a cell on a glass slide for further analysis). Then a stronger pressure exerted by the laser can lift the sample up from the slide onto the cap of a small tube, pretty much like Wiley Coyote being lifted off the air by a rocket, and then getting caught by a gigantic spider's web (pretty far-fetched, I know).

image from www.thomasnet.com

Everything is done at the microsopic level, obviously, hence another microscope is used. Yes, the lecture on microdissection was the second part of the Carl Zeiss demonstration that happened today. Dr Wolf-Dieter Schulz even demonstrated how live samples, such as worms, could be isolated from a growth medium on a Petri plate. I'm just not sure if it is intended to be beamed up onto the cap of a tube because the pressure would surely kill the worm. Material as small as chromosomes (those are the DNA strands folded up, for CSI enthusiasts) can also be isolated.

I wish technology such as this becomes more readily available for biology students in the Philippines, because during my turn in college, I only learned about microdissection through lectures, and without seeing an actual sample.