A new microscopy technique to capture the complexity of biological tissues
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 2-Jan-2026 13:11 ET (2-Jan-2026 18:11 GMT/UTC)
Until today, skin, brain, and all tissues of the human body were difficult to observe in detail with an optical microscope, since the contrast in the image was hindered by the high density of their structures. The research group of the Molecular Microscopy and Spectroscopy Lab at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT-Italian Institute of Technology) in Genoa has devised a new method that allows scientists to see and photograph biological samples in all their complexity, obtaining clear and detailed images. The new technique has been made available to the scientific community in “open science” mode, representing an advantage in the biomedical field, since it allows us to observe active cells, even in the presence of diseases, as well as to understand how drugs interact with living tissues.
A research team developed a novel method using bidirectional reflectance factor (BRF) spectra combined with the PROSPECT-PRO model and modified ratio indices to estimate nitrogen content nondestructively.
A research team has developed a novel AI model, ILCD, and a supporting dataset, CDwPK-VQA, to help early diagnose crop diseases.
During a heart attack, heart muscle cells die and are replaced by scar tissue. This delays the electrical conduction in the heart and favours the onset of cardiac arrhythmia. To reduce this potentially life-threatening complication, researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn intended to partially restore electrical conduction in the scar tissue. To this end, they developed a gene therapy in mice to enrich the gap junction protein connexin 43 in the scar area in order to improve electrical conduction. By this approach, the research team could significantly reduce the frequency of arrhythmia in lesioned hearts. The results are recently published in the Journal of Physiology.