Contribution
Dick Crawford and the ultrastructure of dinoflagellates
Dodge, J. D.
Nova Hedwigia, Beihefte Beih. 151 (2021), p. 1 - 2
publié: Oct 5, 2021
DOI: 10.1127/nova-suppl/2021/001
ArtNo. ESP051015100000, Prix: 29.00 €
Abstract
In the mid-sixties I had managed with the help of various grants to set up an Electron Microscope unit in the Botany Department at Birkbeck College in London University. We had obtained a Zeiss 9 microscope, a Porter Blum microtome and the equipment for metal shadowing samples. The object was to investigate the unique cell structures of dinoflagellates, single-celled organisms found in both marine and freshwater environments. The project had got off to a good start with my first postgrad, Barry Leadbeater, who had made great progress investigating some small dinoflagellates kindly donated by Dr. Mary Parke of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Plymouth. I then obtained a grant to enable me to employ a Research Assistant to expand the work onto as many different dinoflagellates as we could obtain. So, the next stage was to find a person with some knowledge of algae who could learn to do all the complex preparation of specimens, to section the cells and examine them under the electron microscope. Dick Crawford, who applied for the post, had just finished a postgraduate MSc course on marine algae at Menai Bridge. We took him on in 1966 and were amazed at how easily he took to the complexity of the processes involved. Much to my delight he was a quick learner and with help from Barry soon sheaves of micrographs were coming onto my desk. Now we spent hours working out the 3-dimensional structures of the unusual organelles from rather random ultra-thin sections. In those days it was not possible to get strings of adjacent sections so a lot of imagination was needed.
Mots-clefs
diatom • Richard Crawford