Top-of-the-line lab equipment at UNC Greensboro takes students’ skills to the next level. With the guidance of faculty and graduate assistants, they get regular hands-on practice that closely replicates the environment where they’ll work one day.
Those tools, and the labs where they’re stored, are carefully managed by experienced research specialists. It’s thanks to them that students and faculty can trust that equipment works the way it should, so that they gain meaningful knowledge each time they step into the lab.
Advanced Imaging, Depends on How You Slice It
This semester, students and faculty in the biology department gained access to a brand-new Nikon advanced imaging microscope. Even a professor with years of lab work under their belt needs to be trained on how to operate a device fresh off the assembly line, and that responsibility fell to Research Specialist Lee Griffin.
“As the advanced imaging technician, a lot of what I do is determine, hand in hand with faculty, what they want to accomplish,” she says. “Do they just want to prove that something exists, or do they want to publish quality images? We work together to achieve that goal.”
Griffin served in the U.S. Army. The skills she learned managing communication between troops prepared her for this job. Just as a radio wave cannot get from one military base to another if there is a mountain in a way, Griffin knows that even a highly advanced microscope won’t work if a student or professor does not line up the sample correctly.
Working in both communal and individual faculty labs, Griffin must know how each microscope works. Some are fluorescent, separating out dim and bright light and enhancing contrast. The new microscope is confocal. It can block glare from out of focus fluorescent light and slice a three-dimensional sample layer by layer, making it invaluable for studying thick samples.
She worked with Nikon technicians over the summer so that she could show students and faculty what’s different from the lab’s older, decommissioned confocal microscope. “The learning curve is shorter,” she says. “It’s a lot more automated. You had to do a lot of math on the fly with the old one, and if you did not remember the right percentage, you’d blow your image out.”
Maintenance and repairs for all the scopes also fall on Griffin’s shoulders. If something breaks, she will assess whether it can be repaired in-house or if it needs to be sent to a technician or replaced. The hardware and software are expensive. Even with warranties, there are many details Griffin must check to be a good steward of UNCG’s budgets.
“For example, I just had to send out a refrigerated micro centrifuge,” she says. “I had to work with the lab and make sure they decontaminated it properly first. If they don’t, then the manufacturer is going to charge you $1,000 right then and there. Nobody wants to pay $1,000 for something they thought was free.”
Man Behind the Manikins
Whether in an emergency room, operating room, or outpatient care, a nurse must think fast on their feet. Hands-on experience as a student prepares them for stressful real-world environments. At UNCG’s School of Nursing, they get that experience with manikins.
New models can simulate breathing, eye movement, and even sit up. Nursing students can deliver a model’s baby or give them a shot. It can be disturbing to some, but to UNCG’s medical specialist Mehdi Naciri, it’s just another day in UNCG’s state-of-the-art Nursing Instructional Building (NIB).
“They’re making them with AI now,” says Naciri. “It’s a little creepy sometimes. One of the machines we own has eye tracking, so its eyes follow you around the room.”
Naciri keeps busy in the School of Nursing’s simulation rooms, which span two floors of the NIB. In one, low-fidelity manikins (the ones that don’t simulate breathing or heartbeats) are positioned in 18 hospital beds. In the skills assessment room, they learn to do a basic check-up.
On the fourth floor, the high-fidelity manikins allow them to do more specialized work. For example, students in the anesthesia program can hook the manikins up to ventilators. Naciri tailors the experience from the control room, plunging the manikins’ vital signs from stable to critical. “We can change their heart, the sound of their lungs, all their vitals, all from these controls,” he says.
Naciri is an EMT and Certified Healthcare Simulation Operations Specialist (CHSOS). Like Griffin, he has a military background. He was a U.S. Air Force flight medic. “For my last year, my additional duty was in a clinical training section,” he explains. “All I did was instruct TCCC (tactical combat casualty care). I worked with a civilian contractor who did the same job I’m doing now. I fell in love with it. He gave me all kinds of advice and pointers.”
The manikins may not count as students, but Naciri still has to take attendance. “There’s a lot of Excel spreadsheets,” he says. “We do one physical inventory a year. I also keep track of things like equipment updates.”
Everyone makes mistakes, Naciri says, and he’s happy to create an environment where students can make as many mistakes as it takes to learn. “It’s a really cool job,” he says. “You get to see the students become more confident in their skills.”
Down to the Millisecond
Launching into any health field requires an understanding of the human body. Students in nursing, kinesiology, nutrition, biology, and biochemistry must learn how the different parts work together, what happens when something breaks down, and how they respond to environmental changes. That training all falls under physiology, where the students get to know Research Specialist Joseph Ramos.
“Physiology is the study of how life works,” he surmises. “The University saw the value in this, and so we have some pretty high-end equipment and support staff that can allow us to run some complex lab exercises you may not see in other places.”
Ramos has run the labs for more than sixteen years. His background is in biotech. He earned his master’s in biology at UNCG with a concentration in molecular biology. He studied with Professor Yashomati Patel, researching interventions for drug-resistance in breast cancer cells.
“I really got hooked when I started undergraduate research,” says Ramos. “When I was able to get my hands on things in the lab, learning changed for me. So, I understand the importance of connecting with students that way.”
Students start in the physiology labs as early as their sophomore year. “There, they can take measurements of what they’re reading about,” says Ramos. “Sometimes it’s something as simple as a heart rate or something more complex, like the changes in conduction on the skin caused by stress.”
The main physiology lab is modular, so instructors can plug in whatever components and sensors they need for that particular lesson. The software from ADInstruments can record as many as 10,000 data points per second.
Lab specialists are invaluable to faculty as well. “We run as many as fourteen lab sections in a semester,” says Ramos. “I’m always keeping an eye on that roster to identify the new faculty and be available for them. Anyone who comes here gets my cell phone number right out of the gate.”
It’s a rewarding experience to see these lessons click for students across majors. “I’ve had many students come up to me afterwards and tell me this was their favorite lab that they’ve ever taken here,” he says. “It’s just so interactive, which makes it a lot of fun for them.”
Story by Janet Imrick, University Communications
Photography by Sean Norona, University Communications; and courtesy of Dr. Elizabeth Tomlin, College of Arts and Sciences
