Blood Running Cold

Even the coldest parts of planet Earth never reach -150℃. You’d have to travel to Saturn to find that or … to a lab harnessing cryogenics. A type of high-resolution imaging called cryo-SEM (scanning electron microscopy) relies on such low temperatures, achieved using high pressure, to freeze samples before subjecting them to electron microscopy. This approach ensures cells are well-preserved, not losing integrity along with vital and dynamic biological details as they’re prepared for high-res probing. Here, researchers look at the effectiveness of cryo-SEM to analyse samples gathered in haematological research – such as blood and bone marrow. They show that high pressure cryo-SEM of healthy human blood (pictured) preserves cells in groups and individually, as well as their ultrastructure without introducing any structural defects. This opens up new avenues of investigation for the field of haematology.

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.

• Image from work by Irina Davidovich, Carina Levin and Yeshayahu Talmon
• Department of Chemical Engineering and the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI), Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
• Published in Journal of Microscopy, May 2025