Inter/Micro 2026 Displays Microtrace’s Analytical Versatility

Next week microscopists from around the world will gather in Chicago for Inter/Micro 2026- the premier international microscopy conference. Seven Microtrace scientists and scientists connected with Microtrace will present papers during the symposium, which runs from Tuesday, June 16th through Friday, June 19th. The Microtrace talks cover topics including artificial intelligence, biological fluids, blood, contaminants, drugs, food, sand, soils, fibers, pharmaceuticals, and unknown substances. The papers also cover analytical methods spanning light and electron microscopy (SEM), infrared microspectroscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), gas chromatography – mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography- mass spectrometry, Raman microspectroscopy, and microchemistry. This breadth of topics illustrates the versatility of our approach and the range of our laboratory’s experience and expertise.

Microtrace talks include:

Applications of AI to the Microanalytical Laboratory ( Christopher Palenik)
Strategies for Identification of Unknown Pharmaceutical Products in Foodstuffs (Ethan Groves)
Utilizing Polarized Light Microscopy and Raman Microspectroscopy for in situ Sample Analysis (Jared Estévanes)
The Role of Soil Evidence in Establishing the Cause of Death in a Murder Case (Skip Palenik)
A Curious Case of Yellowing: Contaminant Source Determinations in Pharmaceutical Products (Otyllia Vercelletto)
Uninvited Guests: Forensic Analysis of Foreign Bodies Recovered from Anatomical Orifices (Briana Alarcon)
Pan Handling Minerals: Evaluating Water-Driven Panning as an Alternative to Heavy Liquid Separation (John Palenik)

Research presentations given during the first two days will cover techniques and instrumentation, environmental and industrial microscopy, and forensic and chemical microscopy.

All abstracts for Inter/Micro presentations can be found here.

Inter/Micro

Since its beginning in 1948, Inter/Micro has grown to attract microscopists, both amateur and professional, from all areas of light and electron microscopy. Recognized internationally, this meeting is now held every year in Chicago and continues to be sponsored and hosted by McCrone Research Institute.

The first Microscopy Symposium on Electron and Light Microscopy was developed by Walter C. McCrone (light microscopist in chemistry) and Charles Tufts (electron microscopist in physics) and was held June 10-12, 1948 at the Stevens Hotel, now the Hilton Chicago. The Inter/Micro symposia are believed to be the very first meetings to gather top people in light and electron microscopy together to discuss very small particles, including the range of ultrafine particles that are commonly referred to today as “nanoparticles.”

More details about the conference can be found here.

Abstracts

Applications of AI to the Microanalytical Laboratory

Christopher S. Palenik — Microtrace LLC

With the recent mainstream availability of artificial intelligence (AI), this talk explores practical applications of AI that the author has pursued across a wide range of topics relevant to the microanalytical laboratory, including scientific instrumentation, data evaluation, and analytical problem solving.
In the same way that our laboratory staff has approached the implementation of a new analytical instrument—such as Raman microspectrophotometry in the early 2000s—by applying it broadly to a range of questions in order to explore capabilities, limitations and applications, we have adopted a similar exploratory approach to AI. Rather than focusing on a single task, we have pursued a range of questions to gain experience with where these tools can be informative, where they are unreliable, and how they might be applied to the one-off questions that arise on a daily basis.
These efforts have met with mixed success, at times generating novel insights that have been worthy of further pursuit, while other inquiries have produced outputs that were incomplete, misleading, or patently incorrect. Through screenshots of actual interactions with AI, as well as plots and code generated by AI systems, this talk will describe a range of real world examples, including: the integration of an existing database to monitor a live stream of instrumental data through AI-assisted coding and integration; the evaluation of proprietary instrumental file formats to not only extract data but gain insight into the interpretation algorithms captured within the dataset; the examination of relationships among samples in complex, multi instrument, multivariable datasets; and the analysis of photomicrographs.
Rather than presenting AI as either a solution or a curiosity, this talk emphasizes practical applications—highlighting both successes and failures—and discusses how AI generated results have been manually assessed using “the light of experience as guided by intelligence,” borrowing an apt phrase from Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels, describing the manner in which Wolfe instructs his assistant, Archie Goodwin, to operate in his absence.

Strategies for Identification of Unknown Pharmaceutical Products in Foodstuffs

Ethan Groves — Microtrace LLC

Contaminants in food products can be encountered in a wide range of formats. They can present as off-flavors, off-odors, changes in appearance/coloration, or discrete physical objects. When physical characteristics such as shape, color, and embossed markings or printing are present, they can provide valuable clues to the identity of an unknown pharmaceutical tablet, capsule, or gel cap. However, when these products begin to dissolve through contact with the product or as the result of being partially ingested, such diagnostic information is often lost. It is then up to the analyst to pursue chemical identification of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) to provide an identification of the mystery pharmaceutical.
This presentation will provide a range of case examples in which unknown pharmaceutical products, submitted as foreign objects in a range of foodstuffs, were identified. It will present a generalized approach to such analyses, matrix considerations and complications, limitations of commercial spectral libraries, and the value of reference collections in problem solving.

Utilizing Polarized Light Microscopy and Raman Microspectroscopy for in situ Sample Analysis

Jared Estévanes — Microtrace, LLC

When inspecting an unknown specimen, the early steps of analysis usually include mounting the sample for examination by polarized light microcopy (PLM). This step is crucial for understanding the nature of the sample, including determining potential identifications. While numerous components can be confidently identified by PLM, some identifications require further instrumental analysis. Once a potential candidate for analysis has been identified by PLM, a challenge arises in how to best investigate the particle. Particles can be small, mixed in a sea of other particle species, and might potentially be mounted using non-volatile mounting media. Additional manipulation to isolate and analyze the particle of interest increases the risk of losing it, especially if it is small in size. Utilizing PLM in situ on a Raman microscope can alleviate most of these concerns by allowing the analyst to relocate the particles of interest, confirm their properties, and ultimately obtain chemical information—all without particle isolation. While additional factors must be considered, this scheme reduces the risk of particle loss due to handling and allows the analyst to examine a specific target of interest. This talk will discuss the application of Raman spectroscopy to the in-situ analysis of already mounted particles, in light of the practical challenges that arise.

Uninvited Guests: Forensic Analysis of Foreign Bodies Recovered from Anatomical Orifices

Brianna Alarcon — Microtrace LLC

Following a hospital visit, caregivers sought answers after a large black mass was recovered from a patient’s throat after an otherwise typical day. In an unrelated case, healthcare providers became concerned upon discovering a large “stone” within the vaginal cavity of an adult patient.
To address these concerns, materials from both cases were submitted for forensic analysis. Despite their differing circumstances, both cases underscore the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to effectively identify and, in some cases, determine the origin of unknown samples. Techniques including polarized light microscopy (PLM), microchemical testing, chemical analyses, and elemental characterization were used to determine the composition and origin of the materials, which were ultimately identified as an accumulation of human head hair, in one case, and a biologically derived vaginal stone in the other.
The results of these analyses will be presented in the context of each case, emphasizing the importance of communication between scientists and investigators, when addressing complex and often unexpected forensic questions.

A Curious Case of Yellowing: Contaminant Source Determinations in Pharmaceutical Products

Otyllia Vercelletto — Microtrace LLC

Pharmaceutical contaminants come in all shapes and sizes. Most commonly, these fall into broad categories of: cellulose fibers; polymers; metal shavings; and glass particles (just to name a few). The most difficult contaminants to isolate and identify often manifest as faint discolorations due to chemical impurities or sub-visible particulate matter. This presentation will highlight one such investigation into the cause of faint discoloration observed in a pharmaceutical product and the orthogonal, analytical methods employed to identify its source.

The Role of Soil Evidence in Establishing the Cause of Death in a Murder Case

Skip Palenik — Microtrace LLC

The dead body of a young woman, who had been missing for several days after a very early morning altercation with her live-in boyfriend, was finally discovered dead at the bottom of a quarry. Her boyfriend was charged with murdering her by blunt force and dumping the body just inside the gate of the now closed quarry. The defense position was that she had wandered off, in the wrong direction, after their argument, sometime between 1:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m. the morning of her disappearance, and had fallen into the quarry. When discovered by the police, the victim’s body was found on the quarry floor near the gate and quarry wall. She was fully clothed but for her shoes, one of which was located near her prone body; the other one was never found. We were hired by the suspect’s defense attorney to examine the soil on her lone shoe to determine if it was possible to discover where she had last been standing before her body was found by the police. This presentation will describe the examinations and analyses that we performed in order to answer this question and how they were used by the judge (this was a bench trial) to arrive at her decision and reach a verdict.

Pan Handling Minerals: Evaluating Water-Driven Panning as an Alternative to Heavy Liquid Separation

John Palenik — Microtrace LLC

Most of the world’s sands are made up of “light” silicates, such as quartz and feldspars. Because of their frequency and abundance, these minerals are generally less characteristic of a sand’s identity than heavier minerals. Separating sand samples into heavy and light mineral fractions then becomes an important preparatory step towards sand characterization, such as geo-sourcing analysis. The standard process of heavy liquid separation (HLS) is effective but limited to a laboratory environment, since the chemicals used in this process (e.g. bromoform) are difficult to obtain, expensive, and bad for the environment. In this project, the technique of water-driven panning was explored as an alternative method for isolating heavy minerals. Samples of beach sand were collected, processed, and analyzed to determine the effectiveness of this panning technique. These included control samples, fully and partially panned sands (including magnetically separated samples), and heavy mineral deposits. Particle counts of 1,000 grains of sand from each of the samples were conducted, logging the numbers of light minerals, heavy-transparent minerals, and heavy-opaque minerals, in each sample. Individual minerals were characterized through a combination of polarized light microscopy and microchemical tests. The results showed that compared to the control samples, panning dramatically reduced the abundance of light minerals and greatly concentrated heavy minerals. It was thus demonstrated that water-driven panning could be a cheap, effective, and environmentally friendly field tool for preparing sands for analysis.

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