In-depth investigations on I13 to optimise soft tissue synchrotron X-ray microtomography
The Bradbury Lab at King’s College London, headed by Professor Elizabeth Bradbury, investigates damage to the central nervous system (CNS), and how the body responds to it. The traditional way of investigating soft tissue samples such as those of the central nervous system is 2D histology, in which slices are taken, stained and imaged. However, this process has limitations – slice thickness has a lower limit and measurements within cut slices are subject to inaccuracies arising from mechanical processing distortions. The group sent PhD student (now Dr) Merrick Strotton to the Diamond-Manchester Imaging Branchline I13-2 to investigate whether X-ray microtomography (a nominally non-destructive technique for taking a series of 2D images and turning them into a 3D volume) could avoid these issues. It wasn’t clear how to achieve the best possible results, and so alongside the biomedical studies, Dr Strotton worked with Diamond’s Dr Andrew Bodey on a series of methodological investigations on how to optimise imaging for soft tissue samples, the first results of which have recently been published in Scientific Reports.
>Read more on the Diamond Light Source website
Image: Segmentation of the low thoracic-high lumbar (T13-L1) level spinal cord sample from background, white & grey matter from spinal cord and vasculature from spinal cord with SuRVoS.
Credit: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-30520-8#Sec10