John Wingerd

Senior Mechanical Engineer, Siskiyou Corporation

John Wingerd is senior mechanical engineer with Siskiyou Corporation (Grants Pass, OR).

FIGURE 1. A major challenge with sorting bull sperm is their lack of cylindrical symmetry; most commercial instruments are configured for counting and/or sorting spherical objects.
Test & Measurement

Cytometry: Maximizing cytometer performance with optomechanical stabilization

Feb. 18, 2020
High optomechanical stability is the key to discriminating nonstandard-shaped cells with trace variance in fluorescence intensity.
FIGURE 1. The transparent zebrafish embryo enables paired patch clamp measurements of spinal neurons and locomotory muscle cells. Two chevron-shaped repetitive segments of tail muscle are shown. The two patch clamp recording electrodes are shown for an individual motoneuron and muscle cell. Only one electrode is visible in the field because placement of the electrodes during formation of whole-cell recording mode is done under very high magnification.
Test & Measurement

Neuroscience/Bioimaging: Optomechanics reveals transmitter roles in neuromuscular junctions

July 1, 2019
A clever optomechanical setup enables researchers to use patch clamp, Ca2+ imaging, and optogenetics to elucidate the roles of various neurotransmitters and correlate them with...
(3D reconstruction courtesy of Ben Prosser, UPenn)
A heart cell, labeled with the membrane staining dye Di-8-ANEPPS (green), attached to MyoTak biological adhesive (red). Di-8 labels the sarcolemmal and t-tubule membranes of the heart cell, while the adhesive coats two glass micro-rods (not seen), which are used to attach and stretch single heart cells.
Positioning, Support & Accessories

Cell Biology/Cardiology: Ultra-stable micromanipulators enable nanoscale force measurement

Sept. 14, 2016
Leading-edge heart disease research requires the capabilities of next-generation optical instrumentation. Behind the scenes, three-axis micromanipulators let researchers pick ...