Portable Slide Staining System for Microscopy

About this technology

Overview

Innovators at NASA Johnson Space Center have developed a handheld slide staining system designed to support medical, research or environ-mental monitoring. Although deployed aboard the International Space Station to work in conjunction with NASA’s high-powered handheld microscope in the absence of gravity, the system may be applicable to all known staining procedures for terrestrial field and lab microscopes. This novel system is comprised of two primary components which are entirely self-contained when assembled. One component, the dispenser, is designed with an adjustable reagent sponge delivery system that not only serves as a containment unit for fluids, but whose volume allows for multiple uses until the reagents from the dispenser are depleted. The sponges can be replenished with commercial off-the-shelf reagents. The second component, the slide staining device, traps and seals the speci-men slide which then receives the titrated reagent from the dispenser. This technology was derived for space-based missions where a speci-men’s return to Earth for rapid microscopic analysis would not be viable. A situation could exist within a spacecraft necessitating a rapid in situ medical diagnosis on a crewmember in determining whether an infection is present, conducting a white blood cell count, determining blood platelet concentration, and monitoring the effects of solar particle events as it applies to hematological disturbances.