October 26, 2015

Seeing the Big Picture


IsoView Whole-Animal Functional Imaging in Larval Drosophila
from HHMI NEWS on Vimeo.

(October 26, 2015)  High-Speed Microscope Images Entire Living Organisms at High Resolution

Summary

Within less than a second, the new IsoView microscope produces images of entire organisms, such as a zebrafish or fruit fly embryo, with enough resolution in all three dimensions that each cell appears as a distinct structure.

A new microscope developed at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus is giving scientists a clearer, more comprehensive view of biological processes as they unfold in living animals. The microscope produces images of entire organisms, such as a zebrafish or fruit fly embryo, with enough resolution in all three dimensions that each cell appears as a distinct structure. What's more, it does so at speeds fast enough to watch cells move as a developing embryo takes shape and to monitor brain activity as it flashes through neuronal circuits.

Nearly two years in development, Janelia group leader Philipp Keller says his team has built the first light microscope capable of imaging large, non-transparent specimens at sub-second temporal resolution and sub-cellular spatial resolution in all dimensions.

Keller, and his team at Janelia aim to understand how a functioning nervous system emerges in an embryo. Over the last five years, they have devised several imaging technologies that make it possible to image large biological samples at high speed. His lab’s newest microscope, called the IsoView light sheet microscope, overcomes a final challenge—improving spatial resolution—without sacrificing the performance features of his team’s previous microscopes. The IsoView microscope is described in an article published online on October 26, 2015, in the journal Nature Methods. The publication includes complete building plans for the microscope and the associated image processing software developed by Keller's team.

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