Background: 

Libby is a native Augustan and a graduate of Augusta State University with a BS degree in Biology. She began her work in electron microscopy some twenty years ago, here at the Medical College of Georgia in the department of Pathology in the clinical diagnostic EM lab. After three years of clinical work and becoming certified as an Electron Microscopy Technologist, she began working for Dr. Michael Mulroy, an auditory neuroscientist at MCG. Her work centered around the ciliary ultrastructural changes which occurred in the cochlear duct of the alligator lizard after exposure to different ranges of auditory stimuli. She enjoyed the challenge of serial electron microscopy which was soon to become the EM wave of the future, but didn’t enjoy chasing foot-long lizards around the laboratory.

Libby married David Perry in 1984 and moved to Birmingham, AL to continue her work in EM while husband, David, completed a residency in Periodontics. During her two years in Birmingham, she worked with Dale R. Abrahamson and studied the developing glomerular basement membrane in fetal rats. She broadened her work to include several types of immuno-electron microscopy including horseradish peroxidase, cationized ferritin and colloidal gold binding.

Upon returning to Augusta in 1986, Libby went to work in the APM (analytical chemistry) Lab at The Nutrasweet Company, due to the fact there were no positions open at the time in electron microscopy at the Medical College of Georgia. After working swing shift work for 18 months, Libby longed for the regularity of long hours in a dark room staring into an electron microscope.

In 1988, she returned to MCG and worked with Ruth B. Caldwell, PhD in the Department of Anatomy/Ophthalmology. As her electron microscopist, Libby explored endothelial changes taking place in retinopathy. After the birth of her first child, Lane, she retired from her scope and ultramicrotome. Two years later, she had her second child, Paul, and was very happy being a full time mom and helping out her husband in the Periodontal office part-time. This partial retirement lasted almost 13 years!

It was not until she received an email from Dr. Kristen Harris, new MCG faculty member and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, that she decided to come out of retirement and catch up on all the EM techniques that she missed over the past decade. After a couple of months of review and practice, Libby is finally well entrenched back into lab life and considers her job with Dr. Harris a great challenge and a privilege. Her main emphasis is on serial electron microscopic sectioning, photography, and analysis. At left is a ribbon of ultrathin sections (~60 sections total) of the CA1 region of the rat hippocampus. Specific areas of each section are photographed on the electron microscope and then the specific ultrastructure of dendrites, axons, astrocytes, etc, is qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed using customized computer software.

Selected Publications:

	Mulroy MJ and Whaley E. (1984)   Structural changes in auditory hairs during temporary deafness. Scanning Electron Microscopy. 1984/II:831.
	Abrahamson DR and Perry EW. (1985)  In Vivo labeling of laminin developing glomerular basement membranes of newborn rats. Abstract for Poster Session. 1984 Southeast Electron Microscopy Society 8:18.
	Abrahamson DR and Perry EW.  (1985)  Lamin proteoglycans, and glomerular basement membrane assembly in newborn kidneys. Abstract. J. Cell Biology 101:259a.
	Abrahamson DR and Perry EW.  (1986)  Distribution of intravenously injected cationized ferritin within developing glomerular basement membranes of newborn rat kidneys. The Anatomical Record. 216(4):534-543.
	Abrahamson DR and Perry EW.  (1986)  Evidence for splicing new basement membrane into old during glomerular development in newborn rat kidneys. J. Cell Biology. 103(6):2489-2498. (5,248K PDF)