Microscopic Battlefields

The war against cancer and many other diseases is taking place on a microscopic battlefield. Successful diagnosis and treatment relies on being able to study the affected human tissue under a microscope, for example to determine whether the disease is spreading, or if a treatment is fighting it off. However, preparing tissue samples on microscope slides can be quite time and resource intensive. To help with this, scientists have developed a new inexpensive method of imaging fresh human tissue using ultraviolet light, called MUSE. It can produce high-resolution images of human tissue in minutes, without needing to use slides. MUSE was used to capture this image, which shows nerves (yellow) and fat cells (blue) in breast tissue. This simple technology has the potential to transform the way we do research, and ultimately help to make disease diagnosis quicker and more affordable in hospitals and labs when resources are limited.

Written by Gaëlle Coullon

Gaëlle Coullon

Writer

Gaëlle is a consultant and trainer in research communication and commercialisation. As an ex-neuroscientist, she is always looking for new ways to combine her love of writing with everything brain related.

• Image by Richard Levenson, UC Davis
• Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of California Davis Medical Center, Sacramento, CA, USA
• Image copyright held by Richard Levenson, UC Davis
• Research published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, December 2017