I absolutely need to find out more about this

[minoanmiss]

DNA microscope creates 3D images of organisms from the inside out

this was always my issue with microscopy, making visual sense of the flat images i saw.

Comments

[dissectionist]

It’s going to be useful for different things than histology (analysis of cells under a microscope). My lab is a histological pathology lab, and for example, one of the things we do is analyze the size and shape of cells to determine how much larger they are than normal and how messed-up their shape has become. We use this to determine with much greater accuracy how dangerous a cancer is, because the more advanced the cancer is, the more you’ll see those messed-up shapes (morphology) and distended size. So we’ve been able to train an AI to quantify different measures within the cell shape and size, and our AI is now as accurate at its worst as the pathologists are at their best. (Note: it can’t replace a pathologist, nor is that the point. The point is to give pathologists a powerful tool that they can use to confirm their own assessment or help guide them in more difficult cases.)

We wouldn’t be able to make those determinations with this new technology, so while the article posits this as a kind of replacement for traditional histology, it isn’t; what it is is entirely a new tool that can be used in addition to give us new options. It’s not like upgrading to a better scalpel, it’s like buying scissors as well as a scalpel, and now you can do more things if you have both. Some things only a scalpel can do, and some things only scissors can do.

One issue with tumors is that they vascularize themselves, which means they’re little vampires that reroute the body’s blood supply to feed themselves. If this technology helps us see the connections over time that tumors make to the vascular supply, that will teach us a lot about how to control that process. (One would think we’d want to cut the blood supply off, but that might actually be a bad idea. I can’t go into more detail than that here because we and ten other labs are involved in a massive study about that and I can’t talk about it where random people could see, but if you’re curious, I can message you more details.)

[dissectionist]

Also if you ever want to get a quick lesson on cancer histology and/or pathology, I’d be happy to hop on Zoom with you!

[minoanmiss]

woot woot! That sounds fascinating, thank you!

[dissectionist]

Pick a night (7 PM EST or later) or weekend time (12-5 PM EST) that works for you and I’ll make a Zoom link and send it your way. (Unless anyone else is curious, in which case I could post the link here; I’m fine with doing a quick lesson for multiple people too!)

[minoanmiss]

makes a note Probably on a long weekend so I'm not completely work out, heh.