Today was my first time foldscoping!

I am a graduate student in the Prakash Lab at Stanford. As I am about to start the 3rd year of my PhD and 2nd year in the lab, I figured it was about time to start foldscoping.

I took a break from lab this morning to venture outside in the engineering quad and set up my foldscope. There was a bit of a breeze, but luckily none of the parts blew away and I ended up with a fully functional foldscope.


For my first slide, I borrowed some Rhodomonas lens (R. lens) from the lab. Since most of our marine cultures in the lab eat this algae as their main food source, we had plenty of it to spare. However, because these guys are tiny (on the order of 10 um in length), they did not make a very good first foldscope slide... it was hard to tell difference between debris and R. lens.
To make sure I aligned things on my foldscope correctly, I instead prepared a slide with a single eyelash. This was much easier to find, and allowed me to practice focusing and taking images with my phone.
Here is my eyelash root! The part embedded in the skin. Apparently, the cells which grow eyelashes (eyelash hair follicles) are quite different from other human hair follicles and little is known about their biology. They also typically undergo greying later than other hair follicles. Some researchers have tried removing eyelash follicles from donors and culturing them in a dish to learn which factors modulate eyelash growth. But most of all, they make a convenient first foldscope sample :)

I also had some flowers at home, so I made another slide with the stamen from a carnation. I was planning to capture some pollen, but instead got distracted by this structure, which I think was an early stage petal that was about the same size as the anther and stigma.

Looking forward to using my new foldscope. Especially on the train - it might be the perfect commuting activity! :)