DONATE MAINS

MarieMarie Darche is a hospital engineer in the ParisEyeImaging team, a translational research team working at the Centre National Hospitalier des Quinze-Vingts. Under the direction of Michel Paques, she is trying to image human tissue with better and better precision.

Attracted by discovery and by the possibility of asking questions about the world around her, she was particularly captivated by the translational aspect of her team, which brings her to have contact with researchers, physicians, but also patients.

Her image, "the eye of the dragon", represents the nerves of the front part of an eye, made transparent to light with a technique called "clearing". The image was reworked in 3D and then mirrored and coloured to form the effect of a whole eye with a slit pupil. It was taken with a MesoSPIM light sheet microscope, similar to the model in the photo, which can image 3D samples faster than confocal and therefore to enable the observation of larger tissue.

Portrait and text by Delphine Menard