The world of small things

Friday, 09 April 2010

nanoscale fibres prepared from the biodegradable polymer, poly(lactide). Shown more than 100 times thinner than a typical human hair.

Hold a grain of sand at arm's length - that's about the limit of the human eye - anything smaller is almost invisible.

And yet it is important that we understand the nature of things at a microscopic level in order to learn much more about our world and perhaps create new technologies from what we learn.

Take for example, a grain of pollen; these microscopic, self-contained biological units are surrounded by chemically resistant cell walls. They can provide insights into such fundamental questions as how and when plants first colonised the land or how the earth's vegetation has developed through time.

The picture on the right shows nanoscale fibres prepared from the biodegradable polymer, poly(lactide) shown more than 100 times thinner than a typical human hair. The biocompatibility and biodegradability make these systems very interesting in medical applications such as controlled drug release. Situated along each fibre are much larger beads (~ 10mm) which can be used for encapsulating active ingredients.

In order to better understand the microscopic world, the University has one of the best equipped centres for microscopy in the country. The University of Reading's Centre for Advanced Microscopy (CfAM) provides state of the art microscopy facilities that can zoom in to analyse the nature of materials and structures at the atomic level through the nano scale regime up to the macroscopic level.

The Centre's facilities are available both to members of the University of Reading and to other institutions and commercial organisations.

The Centre's staff offer full training in operation, analysis and interpretation and work in partnership with research groups across the campus on specific projects in physical and life sciences, offering a full consultancy service for health, biosciences, food, chemical, medical, electronic, forensic and failure analysis, security, nanotechnology, polymer and materials across manufacturing industries.

Dr Peter Harris, Manager of CfAM says: "CfAM allows the opportunity to work on a wide range of projects, from archaeological samples to viruses and bacteria. An important part of my job is keeping up with developments in the rapidly-evolving world of microscopy and ensuring that CfAM can offer users access to a comprehensive range of state-of-the-art facilities"

The Centre provides comprehensive facilities for electron microscopy, X-ray microanalysis, spectroscopic imaging (Infra-red, Raman), visible light microscopy and scanning probe microscopy.

To find out more about the facilities and see more of the wonderful images captured by the microscopes in CfAM visit http://www.reading.ac.uk/cfam/