Anisha Kalidindi, an Ohio State University graduate student in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, had a dilemma.
If you’ve ever worked at a laboratory with a microscope, you’d know that every setting in your equipment has to be precise for your results to be scientifically accurate. And in neuroscience experiments, ensuring you have an ideal setup with your specialized equipment greatly aids in being able to observe even the minutest details--down to each individual brain cell in a mouse.
This is when Kalidindi had the bright idea to utilize a simple toothpick to track the tilt of the mouse’s head.
We made a crude scale from –4 to +4 in both the up-down and left-right directions on the head mount, but we needed a way to indicate what position the mouse’s head was in. We needed something easy and fast that we use to track the position. Then the idea struck: a toothpick would be perfect. We would create two mini protractors (one for up-down and one for left-right), with the toothpick serving as the “position tracker.” We broke the toothpick in half and stuck the rough edge to the head mount. The pointy end would point to a position on our scale, one for up-down and one for left-right. And just like that with a toothpick and a bit of superglue, our problem was solved.
Now I can record the toothpick position, then go back and put the mouse’s head in an identical position day after day. Over a four-day experiment we have to go back into the darkroom every six hours, and the handy toothpick allows me to collect the data I need for my next insight into the ever-complex biology of the brain.
Walk into any molecular biology lab, and you may see something similar: an everyday object as humble as a toothpick next to (or even attached to) a very expensive piece of equipment. These are the labs where we learn about the types of cells that allow us to think, which proteins cause which diseases and how our genetic code can be targeted to improve our health. The environment where we make these lifesaving discoveries may seem utterly exotic, but we sometimes have to improvise with whatever we can find—just like anyone else. I know I will always have a toothpick at the ready from now on.
Perhaps Kalidindi’s setup could be replicated among other neuroscientists struggling in this area. After all, some of the most life changing discoveries have been made from improvisations. Just something to pick your brain.
-via Anisha Kalidindi
Photo: snd63 / Needpix