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posted by martyb on Tuesday June 02 2020, @11:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the bright-idea dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

When investigating how tumors grow, or how pharmaceuticals affect different types of cells, researchers have to understand how molecules within a cell react—and interact. This is possible with modern laser microscopy. Until now, however, molecules in cell specimens had to be labelled with fluorescent substances in order to make them visible, and this can distort the very behavior of the molecules. Research groups from Bielefeld University and the University of Hong Kong have developed a laser microscope that works without having to label the molecules. For this, the researchers innovated a unique compact fibre laser instead of the solid-state lasers that had previously been used. The new microscope generates far less noise when in use than customary designs, making it suitable for use in operating rooms. The researchers presented their innovative technology in the journal Light: Science and Applications, which is published by Springer Nature.

"Label-free microscopic imaging is currently a hot topic in biomedical research," says Professor Dr. Thomas Huser, a biophysicist who leads the Biomolecular Photonics research group at Bielefeld University. His team worked together with Professor Dr. Kenneth K.Y. Wong's research group at the University of Hong Kong on the fibre laser microscope.

"Staining with fluorescent markers is generally unsuitable for in-vivo tissues," says Huser. "Label-free microscopy is needed, for instance, to investigate how various new types of cells develop from stem cells. It also allows for a tumor to be demarcated from normal tissue without staining. And we can ascertain how pharmaceutical compounds react with molecules in the muscle tissue cells of the heart and liver, as well as other cells."

Journal Reference:
Cihang Kong, Christian Pilger, Henning Hachmeister, et al. High-contrast, fast chemical imaging by coherent Raman scattering using a self-synchronized two-colour fibre laser [open], Light: Science & Applications (DOI: 10.1038/s41377-020-0259-2)


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:44AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @01:44AM (#1002540)

    Just wait until the Boomers have heart attacks when they see their fucking pharmacy got looted and they can't buy their fucking Boomer viagra.

    Pharmacy: looted, closed, and we left the place a fucking mess. Boo hoo, gonna have to pay some kids $15 an hour to clean up because anything less and they won't fucking work. Boo fucking hoo, fucking chain store.

    Fuck you all to hell, Boomers! Boomers did COVID-19!

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:12AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:12AM (#1002569)

    tfa got me thinking about prior art and there is a lot of it in microscopes. A search turns up a number of "timelines" but these are not very complete. The wiki article seems pretty good,
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microscope#History [wikipedia.org]

    Watching internal processes of living cells at high magnification has been a goal for centuries, it looks like that capability might be here--about time!

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