MRI: Acquisition of an Integrated Atomic Force and Fluorescence Microscope to Enhance Undergraduate Research at Wellesley College

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An award is made to Wellesley College for the acquisition of an atomic force microscope integrated with a fluorescence microscope to enhance the educational and research experience of undergraduate microbiologists, biochemists, cell biologists, analytical chemists, and materials scientists. Wellesley College is an undergraduate college for women whose mission is "to provide an excellent liberal arts education for women who will make a difference in the world." As a liberal arts college, Wellesley focuses on educating a culturally diverse group of young women to be articulate, critical, and well-rounded thinkers and citizens. Roughly a third of students major in a scientific discipline, where they are involved in a rich, inquiry-based laboratory curriculum and independent research with faculty. Encouraged by their laboratory experience, many of them go on to careers in STEM fields. In the most recent NSF survey, Wellesley ranked first among all liberal arts colleges in generating female Ph.D.'s in math and science between 2008 and 2012 (199 Ph.D.s). In addition to supporting undergraduate education through research, this instrument will encourage collaboration between biological and physical scientists and between the Wellesley and Olin College communities, as they combine their disciplinary experience to investigate new questions or to take a new look at stubborn old questions. This research-grade integrated AFM-fluorescence microscope will enable students and faculty to sensitively measure very small and dynamic processes in several research areas. The Núñez lab (Chemistry), Klepac-Ceraj lab (Biological Sciences), and Huang lab (Olin College of Engineering) will explore the structure and dynamics of bacterial communities from diverse systems including predatory soil bacteria, oral biofilms, and green photosynthetic freshwater bacteria. Students in the Darling lab (Biological Sciences) will examine protein-protein interactions between cardiac cells. Young investigators in the Flynn lab (Chemistry) will determine the temporal dynamics of metal nanoparticle films at the nanometer scale. The Goss lab (Biological Sciences) will study exocytosis by the fission yeast S. pombe. Furthermore, undergraduate biology, chemistry, physics, and neuroscience students will use this instrument to discover the utility and limitations of fluorescence and scanning probe microscopies in their coursework, and they will measure nanoscale features and physical properties of polymers, optical components, and alloys in Olin College's materials science program.