Taiwan researcher leads advanced microscopy study

2014-12-03

A new imaging technology co-developed by a Taiwan researcher at Academia Sinica can capture biological processes with unprecedented resolution and speed, while leaving samples relatively undamaged.

Lattice light-sheet microscopy was featured in the cover story of renowned journal Science published Oct. 24, according to a spokesperson from Academia Sinica.

Chen Bi-chang, the paper’s lead author and an assistant research fellow at the AS Research Center for Applied Sciences, said the new microscope was based on a concept proposed in 2005 by Eric Betzig, who shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry this year.

Working as a postdoctoral researcher under Betzig at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus two years ago, Chen, along with Betzig, five colleagues and 20 biologists from around the world, developed the device.

Chen said in vivo imaging provides a window into the complex, rapidly evolving physiology of cells that structural imaging alone cannot.

But “existing approaches, including the confocal microscopes commonly used to view living systems, often damage the cells being observed and sacrifice substantial spatiotemporal resolution to capture three-dimensional images,” he said.

Using 2D optical lattices, the new microscope collects high-resolution images rapidly at scales ranging from single molecules to early-stage embryos, while minimizing damage to the samples.

“By observing how cells truly behave as they divide and grow, this new technology will help shed more light on the causes and development of diseases like cancer,” he said.

As the new microscope can only take images of the surface of an object, Chen is working on employing long-wavelength lights and adaptive optics to look deep inside biological systems. “This will enable better understanding of the biological mechanisms of more advanced organisms,” he added.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=224780&CtNode=413)