Seminar

Date 2019-03-26 

■ Title :  Materials science-based approach to brain research

           

■ Speaker :  Prof. Jae-Byum Chang (KAIST MSE)

 

■ Date and Time :  3/26(Tue) 16:00

 

■ Venue :  Applied Engineering Building (W1) 1st Floor, Multimedia Lecture Room

 

 Abstract : 

Visualization of molecules inside cells and organs has been the biggest challenge in biological sciences and medicine. Recently, various optical microscopy techniques have been developed to overcome this challenge. Interestingly, these new techniques were developed based on the knowledge of material properties of organs. For example, various organ clearing techniques (iDISCO, CUBIC, SeeDB, CLARITY) clear organs and make them transparent, enabling large-volume optical imaging without thin-sectioning. These clearing techniques use refractive index-matching solutions to minimize the light scattering inside organs. Second example is organ expansion technique (expansion microscopy), in which organs are physically expanded, enabling super-resolution imaging of organs with conventional diffraction-limited optical microscopy. This technique uses a swellable hydrogel to uniformly expand organs. In this talk, recently developed organ clearing and expansion techniques are introduced. Their mechanisms are explained and compared.