Karen L. Bentley, M.S.

Ms. (de Mesy) Bentley is currently, the Director of the Electron Microscopy Shared Resource and has 29 years of teaching and diagnostic experience in Ultrastructural Pathology, Immunoelectron Microscopy labeling using gold-tagged secondary antibodies, Hematology, Dental Research, Infectious Agents, Biofilm Formation, Nanoparticle Characterization, Morphometric Analysis and X-ray Dispersive Spectroscopy using both Transmission and Scanning Electron Microscopes.

In 2011, Ms. Bentley was recruited by Dr. Edward Schwarz, the Director of the Center for Musculoskeletal Research in Orthopaedics, to investigate and analyze a mouse model of Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA and MSSA strains) infected implants and biofilm formation using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) which resulted in two Orthopaedic Research Society journal covers. In 2014, she initiated transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies on the infected bone which had surrounded the biofilm laden implants. Ms. Bentley's high magnification TEM study led to the discovery of S. aureus' deforming into submicron rod-shaped bacteria to colonize the ostetocytic-lacunar canaliculi network of bone. This was the first evidence of S. aureus, a round non-motile 1-1.5 micron sized bacteria, becoming rod-shaped to enter (using asymmetric binary fission) the narrow confines of (0.4-0.2 micron diameter) canaliculi within live bone. This finding was published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research in May, 2017 and an electron micrograph from her study was also chosen for a book cover, Osteoimmunology, 2nd Ed, 2016.

She has also authored and co-authored over 50 research publications resulting from her years of collaborative TEM and SEM imaging support to researchers here at the University. URMC Researchers who require high magnification imaging support can request a consultation and an estimate of cost prior to starting a research project. This facility provides full wet-lab services for tissue/cells processing, embedding, sectioning and utilizes a Hitachi 7650 TEM/STEM electron microscope with an attached 11 megapixel Gatan digital camera system. It is located in the basement of the Medical School building. A Zeiss Auriga scanning electron microscope housed in Wilmot Hall on the River Campus is used by the laboratory when performing SEM studies.