The way to advance biological study is to develop improved tools, says Daniel van der Weide. An associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, van der Weide hopes his tools will enable neuroscientists to monitor and understand "conversations" that occur in the brain.

Observing how neurons and other cells in the brain interact with each other may help researchers determine the causes of and cures for such diseases as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, which occur when some aspect of cellular communication fails.

Van der Weide and his students are collaborating with other scientists to develop tools to measure and image neuronal activity, both at the whole-cell level and at the single-protein level. The system combines fluorescence, ultraviolet photolysis to provide a chemical trigger, and tiny probes researchers can position directly above single cells to view and measure their chemical responses as they "talk" to each other. When they're perfected, the tools will image the dynamics of living systems.

Collaborating with Iowa State University neuroscientist Professor Phil Haydon, UW-Madison Assistant Professors of Physiology Edwin Chapman and Matt Jones, and Middleton-based Prairie Technologies, Inc., the group also is developing an interface between the probes and a scanning-probe microscope, and will image known samples to test the system.