University of California, Irvine

UCI scientists Enrico Gratton, Lawrence Marsh and Michelle Digman will develop optical microscopy technology capable of imaging biologically relevant events in live animals across cellular and subcellular scales, and in 3D at significant tissue depths. They will use their unique feedback based imaging methodology that has the capability to capture weak signals at the speeds necessary to detect fast biochemical reactions (~ms), and at the resolution needed to allow visualization of critical biomolecular events (~20nm) while still retaining the ability to image across lateral distances (~cm) and at a significant depth (up to 3mm) into the tissue. For this project, they demonstrated the principles of feedback imaging in 3D and imaging in strongly scattering media. Their aim is to show that that these technologies can work together for live animal tissues in an upright microscopy configuration. The project’s biological focus is on cell migration in tissues, a fundamentally more complicated problem than cell migration in 2D. Cell migration is important in cancer metastasis, wound healing, tissue regeneration, stem cell proliferation and developmental biology. The resolution, speed, sensitivity and depth necessary to visualize and characterize the molecular dynamics at the basis of 3D migration have not yet been achieved. This proposed development will advance our knowledge of fundamental biological processes.