Malaria in 3-D
Along with being the hottest thing at the local multiplex, 3-D imaging has entered the laboratory as an important research tool. Using an imaging technique known as high-speed holographic microscopy, Laurence Wilson, a fellow at Harvard’s Rowland Institute, worked with colleagues to produce detailed 3-D images of malaria sperm — the cells that reproduce inside infected mosquitoes — that shed new light on how the cells move. The work was described Nov. 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “The working assumption was that this structure moved through a consistent clockwise beating,” Wilson said. “But what we found was, if you look at the malaria swimming, it doesn’t just move in a ‘right-handed’ way — it actually turns out to be a very general motor. “The only way we could identify this was because we could see the 3-D structure,” he continued. “We could never do that before, and we...