Martin Wilson , PhD

Martin Wilson

Martin started off his career investigating contraceptive vaccines with the Medical Research Council (MRC). Following this, he moved into lung toxicology and gained his PhD in nanotoxicology from Edinburgh Napier University. He then returned to the MRC to work on endometrial pathology. Following a brief detour into global pharmaceuticals, Martin joined the magazine ‘Bitesize Bio’ and set up the Microscopy and Imaging Channel.

Now freelance, Martin runs his own arts and crafts business creating award-winning slate art and bespoke slate and wood items. Martin is still very much involved in science- writing articles for Bitesize Bio as well as Agar Scientific and has written the ebook ‘Before You Touch That Microscope!’ You can find out more about his arts and crafts work on his Facebook page: www.facebook.com/hatchburnandcarve.

Intensity distribution (arbitrary color coding) of an image of two points where the distance between them corresponds to the Rayleigh criterion.

Microscope Resolution: Concepts, Factors and Calculation

This article explains in simple terms microscope resolution concepts, like the Airy disc, Abbe diffraction limit, Rayleigh criterion, and full width half max (FWHM). It also discusses the history.

The Fundamentals and History of Fluorescence and Quantum Dots

At some point in your research and science career, you will no doubt come across fluorescence microscopy. This ubiquitous technique has transformed the way in which microscopists can image, tag and…

Eyepieces, Objectives and Optical Aberrations

For most microscope applications, there are generally only two sets of optics which are adjusted by the user, namely, the objectives and the eyepieces. Of course, this is assuming that the microscope…

Koehler Illumination: A Brief History and a Practical Set Up in Five Easy Steps

The technique of Koehler Illumination is one of the most important and fundamental techniques in achieving optimum imaging in any given light microscope set-up. Although it should be routinely used as…

Immersion Objectives: Using Oil, Glycerol, or Water to Overcome some of the Limits of Resolution

To examine specimens at high magnifications using the microscope, there are a number of factors which need to be taken into consideration. These include resolution, numerical aperture (NA), the…

Collecting Light: The Importance of Numerical Aperture in Microscopy

Numerical aperture (abbreviated as ‘NA’) is an important consideration when trying to distinguish detail in a specimen viewed down the microscope. NA is a number without units and is related to the…

Introduction to Widefield Microscopy

One of the most basic microscopy techniques is known as ‘Widefield Microscopy’. It is fundamentally any technique in which the entire specimen of interest is exposed to the light source with the…