{"id":10501,"date":"2017-12-01T07:40:35","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T12:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/?p=10501"},"modified":"2017-11-30T12:42:20","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T17:42:20","slug":"tech-tools-whole-new-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2017\/12\/tech-tools-whole-new-view\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech Tools: A Whole New View"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"3-D<\/a>
A 3-D microscope shows the individual neurons of a mouse brain. (Image: Will Kirk \/ Homewood Photography)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A new 3-D microscope has arrived on the Homewood campus. The cutting-edge tool condenses what had previously required months of work into just hours, and it allows researchers unprecedented views of organs, tissue, and even live specimens.<\/p>\n

The selective plane fluorescence light sheet microscope is one of the first operational on the East Coast and the only one in Maryland. Purchased with a grant from the National Institutes of Health, it cost $360,000.<\/p>\n

It illuminates specimens from the side, shooting two perfectly aligned planes of light across an object, illuminating a wafer-thin slice of the whole while the camera captures an image\u2014thousands of times over as the specimen moves through the light. The result: A 3-D image of the full object.<\/p>\n

Audrey Branch, a fellow at the Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute<\/a> (co-directed by BME Director Michael I. Miller<\/a>, MS \u201978, PhD \u201983), was one of the first to use it. She says she cried when she saw the first pictures of a mouse brain, its individual neurons glowing red, and its spindly dendrites, too\u2014showing quite clearly the links between those cells. \u201cIt feels so amazing to see the brain in a way that no one has ever seen it before,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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Web Extra<\/h4>\n

Watch Branch use the microscope.<\/p>\n