The Engineering of...getting personal

I heard something kind of cool today: Biomedical researchers may often view science from the third person-- it, them, he, she -- which makes it impersonal. We need to start thinking in the first person -- I, we -- so that we can better sense the impact of our work within the greater community of humanity that we are all a part of! Yes, even those cells you are poking may have feelings, too...

Why should the world care about our project? Well, we are creating a better tool to diagnose infection, especially bacterial. Typically, instruments that utilize light are hindered by the scattering and absorptive environment of the body. The techniques we are testing aim to actually use this environment to our advantage.

Attended another conference this morning aiming to further enhance the unity of the research community by creating a multi-user database for image acquisition, analysis, modification, and distribution called OME: Open Microscopy Environment. I found applications outside the realm of the petri dish and think I will encourage my future medical colleagues to use the database for storage of patients' medical images and sharing amongst specialists.