Nikon conducted this interview with Thomas J. Deerinck when he was chosen as the MicroscopyU Featured Microscopist for Fall 2003. Interested visitors who visit the gallery and would like some additional information are invited to contact Tom directly via email with their own questions at: deerinck@ncmir.ucsd.edu.

NIKON: Tell us about your background (non-scientific) and interests.

DEERINCK: I grew up in a small town called Stockton located in central California. I went to a school (San Joaquin Delta College) in the late '70s that had a one-of-a-kind program, which specialized in training electron microscopists, of all things. Then a friend of mine who was a Buddhist monk and neuroscientist told me about the University of California, San Diego, which is actually located in La Jolla, and I've been down here ever since working under the direction of Dr. Mark Ellisman. Mark is a great boss and a former post doctoral researcher with Dr. Keith Porter, one of the fathers of modern day cell biology. The location is wonderful and in my spare time I enjoy activities like surfing and scuba diving that are made possible by living on the coast.

NIKON: You've done quite well in the Small World contest the past two years, despite the heaviest levels of competition ever seen. To what do you attribute your success?

DEERINCK: Last year was the first time I entered and I was very surprised to win first place. I would have to attribute my success to the fact that working at the National Center for Microscopy and Research gives me access to tremendous resources. They have all kinds of microscopes and equipment, so I have the best toys in the world to play with.

NIKON: What led you to such an intense interest in microscopy and neuroscience?

DEERINCK: I have been interested in science since I was a child. My father was an amateur astronomer who even ground his own mirrors and lenses by hand. My interest in microscopy began when I was in high school. A scientist named Dr. Elizabeth Mathews, who had set up a special training program in electron microscopy, came to visit and displayed these fantastic images of things you just couldn't see before. My involvement in neuroscience developed, in part, because that was what my boss was trained in, but I had always been intrigued by diseases like schizophrenia and Alzheimer's. My work in neuroscience has given me a chance to explore such interests.

NIKON: What's it like working with so many preeminent scientists?

DEERINCK: It has been amazing. The UCSD (University of California at San Diego) is surrounded by such incredible resources as the Salk Institute, The Scripps Research Institute, and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, along with a host of biotech companies. The region is truly a hotbed of biological research.

NIKON: What makes a great photomicrograph or digital image?

DEERINCK: The point is to communicate a concept or a finding. It should tell you something or talk to you. Also, an image that is pleasing to the eye tends to more easily capture one's attention. The brain is a particularly good subject because it has such an incredible complexity. In fact, all of nature has an innate beauty that most people don't realize, but which can be revealed with the help of a microscope.

NIKON: How difficult is specimen preparation?

DEERINCK: Where I work, we not only utilize standard specimen preparation methods, but we specialize in develop new ones. One of the revolutions currently occurring in microscopy is the use of new molecular biology techniques such as GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein) to engineer certain characteristics into the protein being studied. These methods can be quite sophisticated and challenging, but make possible observations that could never be made before.

NIKON: Do you have a favorite photomicrograph or digital image?

DEERINCK: My favorite image is part of a database project we are working on that involves mapping the distribution of proteins in the brain in three dimensions. We use a computer-controlled multiphoton microscope with an automated montaging stage. This way we can record images of large regions of the brain at near diffraction limit resolution. One data set in particular was taken with a 60x objective and was made from 36 images along the X axis, 40 in the Y axis, and 10 in Z (along the microscope optical axis) using three different channels. The final product is, therefore, a compilation of 43,200 images put seamlessly together. It is an astonishing sight, but needs to be enlarged to about 18 feet in size to really be appreciated. The image that I won the Small World contest with last year was actually one of the 43,200 images that comprises this larger image of the brain.

NIKON: Can you give us an example of images you particularly like?

DEERINCK: I like any image of the brain. The brain is so intricate, complex, and elaborate that it's fascinating on many levels.

NIKON: What's some of the fun stuff you do?

DEERINCK: Almost everything we do at the lab is fun. My boss has created such a great research environment with so many different toys, from high voltage electron microscopes to high speed multiphoton systems, and such great assortment of collaborators, you can't help but have fun.