Exploring cells with digital fluorescence microscopy

Course reviews

• 
  Kevin McCarthy 13 July 2026 4:32PM

  1 2 3 4 5

  Rating entered.

  Overall the course proved to be highly rewarding. The detailed cell compositional graphics within "6 Inspecting structures in a 3D cell", together with the associated descriptions and electron micrograph notes, alone make this course worth undertaking.
  
  Access to the OU's online microscope: "https://students.open.ac.uk/stem/openlearn/microscope/ver/1.1.4/?dataset=s296%5Cs296_fluo" was clearly extremely beneficial in gaining what approached to hands-on experience (without the hassle of creating samples!)
  
  The comparative and scenario based review questions were very useful, though the final "Quiz" less so.
  
  Miscellaneous notes:
  
  It came as a surprise to see the 6 "Editor" mark-ups that were present in the MS Word version; the "Introduction" being a case in point, with 3.
  
  Introduction
  "[Editor: course image to be added (banner on front page / top of each page)]
  [Editor: I thought one of the DFM images would be a logical pick. I couldn't find any of those specific images on the protein atlas site (to find the largest / highest res version), so I've dropped in something else that felt visually striking... any thoughts on that, or something else specific we should use?]
  [Editor: source for image currently in place, HPA056283: HeLa: https://www.proteinatlas.org/ENSG00000114745-GORASP1/subcellular]"
  
  3.1 "[Author: SAQ to be added?] [Editor: - not sure if this was still to be decided? all fine either way, we can drop something in here, or I can just remove this comment if not needed]"
  
  4.5 Table 2 stated that Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) achieves up to ~1,000,000x, whilst the following states potentially beyond TEM 50,000,000 magnification?
  https://www.nanoscience.com/blogs/whats-the-difference-between-sem-and-tem/
  
  Electron microscopy labelling: "Limited; specific structures identified by morphology" I was not clear whether this covered Immunogold labelling?
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunogold_labelling
  
  5.2 Mitochondrial dynamics
  I am not sure that the video did "*clearly* show how the mitochondria move and change their shape."
  
  5.2 The online course post-video 2 question is absent from the MS Word document...
  "Why is it not possible to obtain a video like Video 2, showing mitochondrial movement, when using electron microscopy?"
  ...though the question has been covered before anyway.
  
  5.5 Specialised applications: Super-resolution microscopy
  The following URL provides one update on nm resolution, whilst including some informative graphics...
  https://www.hamamatsu.com/eu/en/applications/life-sciences/fluorescence-imaging/super-resolution-microscopy.html
  
  Once again a question is absent from the MS Word document...
  Which cellular structure with a diameter of ~25 nm can you think of, that you could visualise with super-resolution microscopy?
  
  6 Inspecting structures in a 3D cell
  cytosTolic -> cytosolic
  
  Question 1 the MS Word list is already in the correct order.
  
  7 Using the digital fluorescence microscope
  Refers to "...your Practical Workbook" ...in this context presumably this is intended to refer to the course itself?
  
  "Now go to the DFM in [Editor: add live link]"
  https://students-dev.open.ac.uk/stem/openlearn/microscope/ver/1.1.4/?dataset=s296%5Cs296_fluo
  ...is present, rather than...
  https://students.open.ac.uk/stem/openlearn/microscope/ver/1.1.4/?dataset=s296%5Cs296_fluo
  
  8 Quiz
  Question 6 "[Editor: double check first sentence here – both answers were listed as dyes but I think the second should’ve been indicators? (I’ve adjusted accordingly)]"

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