All About Scales

The devil is in the detail, right? But what about the bigger picture? The fact is when it comes to understanding disease, researchers need to understand how both cells and tissues respond. Histology allows fine details to be captured by taking thin slices through cells within a tissue, while CT imaging captures whole tissues and organs but at the expense of high resolution. Researchers now combine the two techniques to produce an approach called histotomography, which provides the details of histology and the bigger picture of CT. Using zebrafish as a model to test the approach they were able to capture its entire body as well as features such as cell shape and size (seen here). This approach will enable researchers to study changes in response to disease at both cellular and tissue levels, simultaneously.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Video by Keith Cheng and Xuying Xin
• The Jake Gittlen Laboratories for Cancer Research, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA
• Video originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, May 2019