'A Little Off the Top' Helps NIST Map Cells with Submicrometer Resolution (IMAGE)

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

'A Little Off the Top' Helps NIST Map Cells with Submicrometer Resolution

Caption

This artist's illustration shows a HeLa cell with its top already "milled" off being probed by a secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) beam. Molecules from three sections of the cell -- the membrane, the cytoplasm and the nucleus -- are seen ejecting from the surface in response. The spectra from these molecules are used to map the cell sections from which they originate.

Credit

Donald Bliss, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health

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