British mountaineer George Mallory famously said he climbed Mount Everest “because it’s there.”
University of Utah researcher Randall Polson said a similar mindset led him to etch microscopic-sized versions of the U.’s logo onto some of his red blood cells with a tiny ion beam.
“This was just kind of a fun thing,” said Polson, who dubbed the picture he took of the etched cells “The U. is in my blood.”
Working at the U.’s nanotechnology research, analysis and fabrication facility known as Utah Nanofab, Polson had used the highly precise beam to etch and analyze metal in computer microchips, but never on soft tissue. And, frankly, he said, he just wanted to see if it would work.
So the U.-trained doctorate level optical engineer pricked his finger, put his blood beneath the beam’s electron microscope and went to work.
Polson first created a stencil with the beam to help create the perfect “U” shape on each cell. It then took about a minute to brand each of the 20 or 30 red blood cells with the university’s ubiquitous logo, he said.
Among a host of sophisticated instruments at Utah Nanofab, the beam removed material similar to a sandblaster, essentially carving out bits of the cell to form the “U.” The beam is about 1,000 times smaller in diameter than a human hair, Polson said, and red blood cells are about 10 times smaller.
The Utah Nanofab, an arm of the U. engineering department, focuses on nanoscale fabrication and industrial process design, along with imagery at the nano level, invisible to the naked eye or even through a regular microscope.
The ion beam tool typically produces black and white images, so Polson colorized the red blood cells using software similar to Photoshop. He then submitted pictures of his work in early August for a monthly photo contest by the ion beam’s manufacturer, the Oregon-based FEI Co.
Although the project was mainly driven by curiosity, Polson said he hopes it’ll prompt others across campus, particularly medical researchers, to apply the tool to their own research.
“We don’t know what it could be used for,” Polson said. “But it could spark someone’s imagination.”