Beginning with the invention of the first microscope in the late 1500s, scientists have been trying to peer into preserved cells and tissues with ever-greater magnification. The latest generation of so-called "super-resolution" microscopes can see inside cells with resolution better than 250 nanometers. A team of researchers from MIT has now taken a novel approach to gaining such high-resolution images: Instead of making their microscopes more powerful, they have discovered a method that enlarges tissue samples by embedding¹ them in a polymer that swells² when water is added. This allows specimens³ to be physically⁴ magnified, and then imaged at a much higher resolution.

 

This technique, which uses inexpensive, commercially available chemicals and microscopes commonly found in research labs, should give many more scientists access to super-resolution imaging, the researchers say.

 

"Instead of acquiring a new microscope to take images with nanoscale resolution, you can take the images on a regular microscope. You physically make the sample bigger, rather than trying to magnify the rays of light that are emitted by the sample," says Ed Boyden, an associate professor of biological engineering and brain and cognitive⁵ sciences at MIT.

 

Boyden is the senior author of a paper describing the new method in the Jan. 15 online edition of Science. Lead authors of the paper are graduate students Fei Chen and Paul Tillberg.

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