The BIF offers a one-week course in Microtechnique taught by Dr. Denise Schichnes. It is a hands-on lab class where you will learn the fundamentals of making microscope slide preparations for research.
Upcoming Workshop Dates:
June 9-13, 2025 Animal Histology
June 23-27, 2025 Plant Microtechnique
While the student will be given a short workbook on the topic, you may consider this text by Ruzin:
Ruzin, SE. 1999. Plant Microtechnique and Microscopy
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
ISBN 0-19-508956-1
Plant microtechnique – the preparation of microscope slides from living material – has made a resurgence due, in part, to the necessity of molecular biologists to visualize a gene or gene product in the context of the whole plant. Molecular biologists are no longer content with knowing that a gene is just being expressed; they need to know where in the organism and when during its developmental program that gene is doing what it does. This is where microtechnique comes into play. The “old fashioned” techniques of microscopy and paraffin sectioning have become indispensable. The fact that the instruction manuals are dated has resulted in this manual. This Laboratory Manual in Plant Microtechnique started from a series of handouts from my course at Berkeley in Plant Microtechnique. In the six years it took to write this text, I added background, techniques, protocols, and tables, in an effort to include most of the information a student in developmental biology requires for an anatomical and cytological investigation of plants. Finally, although the text is geared toward plant biology, it is applicable to animal biology as well.