The laser that could finally show us life's hidden machinery

Most of what a cell does is still invisible: about 90% of human proteins are too small or faint for today's best microscopes to show clearly. At the University of California, Berkeley, physicist Holger Mueller has spent 15 years building a fix — a laser phase plate, a device that sharpens the image inside powerful electron microscopes so those tiny proteins come into focus. After a 2019 gathering of imaging scientists at Biohub put it at the top of their wish list, prototypes built with Thermo Fisher Scientific are already producing results in other labs. If the design can be manufactured widely, seeing the machinery of life clearly could speed the search for treatments for diseases that still baffle medicine.

SDG 9 · Industry, innovation and infrastructure — Mechanism: tech innovation