MIT researchers has taken a novel approach to taking high-resolution images using a method that enlarges tissue samples by embedding them in a polymer that swells when water is added.

This technique physically magnifies specimens and images them at a much higher resolution.

Like Us on Facebook

It uses inexpensive, commercially available chemicals and microscopes commonly found in research labs. It should give more scientists access to super-resolution imaging.

The new technique is called "expansion microscopy". It hasn't reached the level of the fine-scale resolution in electron microscopes or the super-resolution microscopes but it won the Nobel Prize last year.

The technique offers an inexpensive way for scientists to examine fine cellular structures at a detailed level using off-the-shelf components.

"Instead of acquiring a new microscope to take images with nanoscale resolution, you can take the images on a regular microscope. You physically make the sample bigger, rather than trying to magnify the rays of light that are emitted by the sample," says senior author of a paper Ed Boyden.

Boyden sees the technology's strength as allowing three-dimensional analysis of tissues. For example, it could reveal the cellular interactions that cause a cancer to spread or reveal a new way to map the brain.

Details of the new research were published in the journal, Science.

Tagshigh-resolution images, expansion microscopy, image enlargement, three-dimensional analysis, tissue, cellular tissues