Time-lapse data from IsoView microscopy shows a Drosophila larva with a fluorescent marker of neural activity.COURTESY OF KELLER LAB, HHMI/JANELIA RESEARCH CAMPUSImaging
Life-science imaging broke barriers this year, as scientists built upon microscopy approaches to peer ever deeper into living tissues.
In October, Purdue University’s Ji-Xin Cheng and colleagues reported they had greatly increased the speed of collecting images—from minutes to seconds—using in vivo vibrational spectroscopic imaging, a technique that obviates the need for fluorescence. The key improvement was eliminating the need for a spectrometer, which collects the vibrational signature of molecules within a sample that are excited by light. Instead, Cheng’s team color-coded the photons before they went into the tissue.
“The idea is that before we send the photons into the tissue, we code every color with a distinct megahertz frequency,” Cheng told The Scientist at the time. “In this way, we can collect the ...
