Case Study 2 



Sharing Remote Instruments 



Specimens of chick cerebellum stained with osmium and reduced with potassium ferrocyanide. Image B 

 shows a higher magnification of a portion of Image A. The images were obtained in a study of the internal 

 membrane structure of the Purkinje cell. 



HPCC-supported advances in computer net- 

 works and visualization software are allowing 

 scientists to control and share remote micro- 

 scopes, telescopes, and other scientific instru- 

 ments in an interactive, real-time fashion. These 

 types of projects have opened the doors of the 

 laboratory to a new concept - the "distributed 

 laboratory" - which integrates laboratory equip- 

 ment, high performance computing systems and 

 data visualization tools over a high speed net- 

 work, resulting in a more comprehensive and 

 scientifically valuable investigative environ- 

 ment. 



Remote Microscopy 



Researchers at the University of California-San 

 Diego Microscopy and Imaging Resource have 

 implemented a sophisticated, computer-con- 

 trolled high-voltage transmission electron micro- 

 scope (HVEM). Working in collaboration with 

 staff scientists at the San Diego Supercomputer 

 Center and the Scripps Research Institute, the 

 research group has coupled the HVEM via a 



high speed network to high performance com- 

 puting systems and interactive visualization soft- 

 ware running on scientists' workstations. The 

 microscope is a unique resource, one of only a 

 few such microscopes in the United States in use 

 in biological science. More powerful than ordi- 

 nary electron microscopes, it can accommodate 

 much thicker laboratory specimens, yielding 

 greater amounts of biological information. 

 Using computer tomography and other visualiza- 

 tion techniques, the images collected can be used 

 to produce three-dimensional animations, allow- 

 ing scientists to look at many previously uninter- 

 preted areas of biomedical science relating bio- 

 logical function with structure. 



The subjects of such study include the disruption 

 of nerve cell components resulting from 

 Alzheimer's disease, the structural relations of 

 protein molecules involved in the release of cal- 

 cium inside neurons, and the three-dimensional 

 form of the Golgi apparatus, where sugars are 

 added to proteins. 



This project is an example of the application of 



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