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Virtual microscopy (VM) is amazing. It can do things, such as organize image information, that the world’s best light microscopes can’t handle. Virtual slides are high-resolution computerized slides of diagnostic quality that are viewed even more dynamically and interactively than with a microscope.

“It’s revolutionized the curriculum—and that’s just for starters,” says Jane Dunlevy, Ph.D., a histologist and associate professor in the medical school’s Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology. 

“No doubt, this technology already has delivered more than it promised.”
 It takes awesome amounts of computer memory and computing power and speed to handle the VM system, she says. A single virtual slide image occupies more real estate on a computer hard drive than 1,000 early desktops had combined in their memory banks.

VM has replaced the classroom-based light, or optical, microscope in the school’s medical and health sciences curriculum. The VM system delivers super-sharp digital images—virtual slides—of healthy or diseased human tissue. (VM has other applications, but we focus on its use in medical and health science education.) 

Before VM, students learned about medical tissue samples through light microscopes that were shared. No two glass slides were identical; and there are 200 in a box, with a box for each medical student.

“It was tricky, for sure, and you had slide breakage as well as other maintenance issues such as fading of the tissue stain,” Dunlevy says. With a virtual slide, all students in a class can witness the same material and, because no one is touching anything and nothing ages, slide images remains pristine. 

“For students, the best news is threefold: VM delivers diagnostic quality images, simultaneous viewing of multiple magnifications, and the ability to add annotations—the instructor or student can draw on top of the computer image,” says Dunlevy. The computer that virtual slides are viewed on is not a substitute for the microscope but rather is a vast improvement to one. A collection of virtual slides is not an electronic atlas of images. The virtual slides are viewed more interactively than could ever be done with a microscope.

The school’s VM package soon will be enhanced thanks to a student technology fee grant.  Total cost for the VM system, including the upgrades, will be about $100,000. 

“Our virtual microscopy system is an investment in technology that will expand educational opportunities at UND for years to come,” Dunlevy says.