Uric Acid Crystals

If people don’t die before reaching their hundredth birthday, they enter an especially healthy demographic cohort except for one common ailment that eventually afflicts all—inflammatory arthritis. The most common cause for this is uric acid crystals in joints which also presents as gout. Because an accurate diagnosis of this condition has required drawing fluid from the painful joint and then using a polarizing light microscope to see the crystals, this often isn’t done. But UCLA scientists have developed a new kind of lens free microscopy that creates a holographic diffraction pattern which a computer translates into an image. Besides showing the uric acid crystals, this imaging system pictures an area 100 times larger than a conventional polarized light microscope. MORE

Image Credit: UCLA