Using new technology, U researchers can now take tens of thousands of microscopic images and combine them into a single model in real time.
This technology helps researchers address a major challenge that affects scientists across many fields8212;using microscopes to map entire structures in a way that scientists can understand the data they contain.
“Traditionally, really understanding this type of data required a specialist in the field of microscopes,” said Robert Marc, director of research for the Moran Eye Center. “These people are trained for years to understand how to put everything together and interpret what is happening. With this new advancement in technology, we can understand more data in a week than these specialists could in a lifetime.”
Marc explained that in the past, images were taken by microscopes as big as rooms, and then specialists worked for months to combine those images into useful information. Instead of taking decades to understand characteristics about complex subjects, researchers can now get results in a matter of weeks or months, he said.
Greg Jones, associate director of the U’s Scientific Computing and Imaging Center, said the power of the discovery lies in the ability to create high resolution computer models of entire samples.
Jones said that in the past, scientists could only take images of parts of the structures at high resolution, making it difficult to understand how all the different parts of a structure interacted. Using technology established by the imaging center, understanding these massive structures can now take place in real time.
“This technology allows researchers to see their entire samples in a high resolution format,” Jones said. “This allows them to generate models that mark specific parts of the structure, and as a result, understand huge amounts of data in a short amount of time.”
Jones explained that the technology allows researchers to create computer models that can represent healthy structures, and compare it to structures caused by specific diseases.
“This allows people to really see and understand the difference between the two samples,” Jones said. “We hope that this technology can be used to understand anything that people currently use microscopes on8212;things such as liver research, kidney research or heart research.”
Marc said that the technology could potentially be used to treat diseases such as Alzheimer’s, epilepsy or macular degeneration.
U researchers were responsible for helping build the computer software that analyzes the images, as well as providing genetic markers that allow researchers to label specific parts of the structures.