Doubling the power of light-sheet microscopy
2017
Challenge
Most fluorescence microscopes only collect light from a single objective lens, which limits light collection, spatial resolution, and speed. In turn, this restricts the amount of information obtained from the sample being studied.
Advance
IRP researchers led by Hari Shroff, Ph.D., showed that depositing samples on mirrored coverslips, instead of conventional glass coverslips, provides extra views of the sample — more than doubling the light collection efficiency, spatial resolution, and speed in light-sheet microscopy. The team also developed novel computational methods that extract this extra information from the raw images.
Impact
With this new technique, researchers can now gain more information from the limited amount of light used in fluorescence microscopy, paving the way for new investigations that may produce more advanced insights into cellular structure and function than previously possible. Already, IRP researchers used this advance to follow high-speed calcium waves in developing nematode embryos and to obtain finer, faster images of dynamic processes within cells.
Publications
Wu Y, Kumar A, Smith C, Ardiel E, Chandris P, Christensen R, Rey-Suarez I, Guo M., Vishwasrao H, Chen J, Tang J, Upadhyaya A, La Riviere P, Shroff H. (2017). Reflective imaging improves spatiotemporal resolution and collection efficiency in light sheet microscopy. Nature Communications. 8(1): 1452.
This page was last updated on Tuesday, June 13, 2023