Prof. Joel Kubby - UCSC Biomedical Research

Professor Joel Kubby is collaborating with engineers, physicists and biologists to utilize Adaptive Optics for the improvement of deep tissue imaging of living cells. Current biological microscopy is incapable of obtaining high quality live imaging in samples greater than 30 microns beneath the plasma membrane, where many critical cellular processes occur. Much of the degradation in image quality is the result of local differences in the refractive index, both within the sample and between the sample and the immersion lens. Adaptive optics was first used to correct for image aberrations in astronomical imaging. Kubby and his colleagues believe that the same principles that improved resolution in telescopes can be adapted to improve confocal, two-photon, and spinning disk microscopy systems that are crucial for biological research.