Further at MBL

Abstract

In 1988, a year before Hurricane Hugo devastated many of the houses and downed the ancient hard wood trees in the area, we had purchased “Toti’s” cottage near the El Yunque Rain Forest on the northeast end of Puerto Rico (Fig. 5.1). Fortunately, Hugo’s damage to our cottage was limited to the low-pitched roof above the bedrooms in the rear of the house. The many windows and glass sliding doors in the front, windward side of the storm, were protected by heavy gaged corrugated aluminum shutters.

Epilogue

After reminiscing on my upbringing by peace-loving parents in war-torn Japan, and how meeting the Dans injected new hope and purpose into my life despite the War, I spent many words describing how I became wedded to probing some mysteries of living cells using images captured through the polarized light microscope.

But as you may have gathered from the earlier chapters, it wasn’t really that I had the foresight to see how powerful the light microscope could become; or to commit a lifetime to developing, or helping to develop, ever more capable light microscopes; or to explore what Nature can tell us about the physical basis of life using such instruments. It was more a culmination of: curiosity, wanting to understand, wanting to share my interests in optics as well as in biology with others; of accidental discovery, response to input from teachers, friends, colleagues and students; and perhaps a bit of competitive spirit that led me through my life (Fig. 5.28). I think this may actually be the way with many scientists.

Fig. 5.28

Shinya at home in 2012 being interviewed by Sara Robberson about his life as a biologist (the interview premiered on the public radio website, Transom.org produced by Sara Robberson, student in Transom’s Spring 2012 Story Workshop). Available on the web at http://transom.org/2012/the-cells-mystery/ (Photo: Courtesy C Inoue)

Even though today, still very few biologists take advantage of the polarizing microscope, I believe it is worth emphasizing at this point again how useful and powerful this instrument can be in biology and medicine. It is not only a useful tool for visualizing live tissue and cellular structures that may be otherwise difficult to see, but also for dynamically following the behavior of the molecules that make up even tiny cellular structures. More recent versions of polarized light microscopes are used to follow the dynamic behavior of even single fluorescent molecules inside active living cells.

In fact, I have been blessed with understanding friends and family, excellent co-workers, and even undeserved recognitions. Still rather than dwell further on other events of the last 10 years, this seems to be a reasonable place to stop reminiscing.

As I stop here, I wish to dedicate my memory and share images with the many unforgettable individuals on five continents, who have given me such wonderful opportunities and memorable experiences. I leave with my very best wishes to those of you who have also ventured into this exciting career of probing Nature’s ways.