The Lost Art of Electron Microscopy — and Why Modern Skin Science Needs It Back
I spent four years in the basement of my university working in an electron microscopy lab. Although there were over 30,000 students on campus, I was often the only one down there. That solitude became the birthplace of everything I would later do in skin biology.
While earning my degree, I studied the biological development of diverse species, which ultimately led me into research on cellular aging—and eventually, skincare biology. But it was my work on black widow spiders that required me to master electron microscopy and histology, two classic research techniques that are slowly disappearing from modern laboratories.
When Science Still Required Craftsmanship
Electron microscopy was once at the forefront of biological innovation—it gave humanity its first view inside the cell and provided the foundation for modern cellular biology. Yet despite its unmatched precision, the discipline has become nearly obsolete. Why? Because it takes effort, patience, and time—and modern science rewards immediacy over mastery.
To visualize the interior of a cell, you can’t just “look” under a microscope. You must spend weeks preparing a specimen for that one perfect image. Below is the exact protocol I used for my spiders:
1. Capturing the Perfect Specimen
To understand egg development, I had to locate eggs inside the spider’s body during active laying—a five-minute window at most. This meant sitting in a temperature-controlled growth chamber for hours until a spider began laying. The moment it did, I sprinted to the adjoining lab, placed it in a CO₂ chamber, anesthetized it, and immediately decapitated it for fixation. Timing was everything.
2. Fixation
Fixation prevents decay and preserves true cellular structure. I initially used glutaraldehyde, the common choice, but my samples kept falling apart. After dozens of failed runs, I switched to Bouin’s fixative—an older, largely forgotten solution—and it worked flawlessly. The abdomen skin peeled away cleanly, leaving a semi-hardened matrix of organs and fat ready for dehydration.
3. Dehydration and Embedding
Next, I removed water through ascending alcohol concentrations—from 10% to 100% over a full day. Then came embedding. For electron microscopy, this means epoxy resin, not paraffin. I tested paraffin for six months, nearly 200 attempts—it failed every time. Epoxy worked perfectly and became my standard for all microscopy work, light or electron.
4. Sectioning
Electron microscopy is part science, part craftsmanship. We made our own glass knives for slicing specimens into sections as thin as 1 μm. Each knife was handmade on a knifemaker and then installed into an ultramicrotome for sectioning.
Glass knives prepared for 1 μm specimen slicing.
5. Staining and Visualization
After sectioning, I stained each slice to enhance contrast and mounted it on copper grids. The microscope room lights stayed off, and under the green glow of the phosphorus screen, the inner world of the cell unfolded. When I captured an image, it was on film—not digital—because film still has higher resolution. I developed the photos myself in our darkroom.
Why This Matters for Modern Skin Care
Every lesson from that basement applies to skin science today. The modern skincare industry moves fast—but speed corrupts data. Most “research” is produced to serve marketing, not discovery. When results must please funders, they are biased. When timelines demand instant outcomes, methods are compromised. The result: false conclusions that shape the skincare market.
Electron microscopy represents a lost era of integrity in research—a time when accuracy mattered more than publication frequency. The equipment hasn’t changed in seventy years because it was already right seventy years ago. There is no faster substitute for precision.
OUMERE Laboratory Direction
At OUMERE, I’m reintroducing electron microscopy into modern skin research to answer fundamental biological questions honestly. Future projects will examine human skin samples exposed to various skincare formulations and environmental conditions to visualize how true biological change occurs at the cellular level.
Upcoming electron microscopy studies include:
- Changes in skin water content following exposure to hyaluronic acid
- Alterations in collagen density from vitamin C serums
- Structural degradation of the extracellular matrix from daily exfoliation
All research will be conducted using traditional histological preparation and transmission electron microscopy—not for nostalgia, but because accuracy requires it.
Editor’s Lab Note
This essay documents the methodological lineage behind OUMERE’s scientific approach. Modern skincare research often prizes convenience over correctness; OUMERE’s laboratory is restoring the opposite. Our belief: progress begins by mastering what others have abandoned.