Cell imaging of the liver may go beyond still pictures and evolve into real-time videos in the future, providing doctors continuous and dependable information on the inner workings of their patients and possibly directions on how to cure them, the National Science Council (NSC) said yesterday.
The technology is called in vivo multiphoton microscopy and has achieved laboratory success. A team of National Taiwan University medical and physics researchers installed a titanium intravital hepatic (liver) imaging chamber on the belly of a rat and was able to video monitor metabolic activities of its liver.
The team's work was published in the Journal of Biomedical Optics last in February last year.
"Multiphoton microscopy is a relatively new nonlinear optical technique developed in the early 19 90s and allows for effective label-free imaging of many tissue types," said Wesley Chen (
live action
"The technology is exciting as before we could only infer what happened inside the liver based on images taken at different times, but now we can see it in action," said Lee Hsuan-shu (李宣書), the team's contributing medical researcher.
The window-like device sheds light on liver function mechanisms, pathology and molecular biology, Lee said.
For example, the team has seen liver damage caused by Panadol overdose and has documented through bile duct ligation that bile duct congestion could cause jaundice.
"When the duct is congested, we can see that bile elimination is blocked; the juices then flow into the blood, and the reddish bilirubin and yellowish biliflavin show through the skin," Lee said.
Current imaging techniques, such as ultrasound, CT scans and magnetic resonance imaging, only provide macro images, Lee said, adding that although intravital videomicroscopy could provide images at a more microscopic level, it could not zoom in on a single cell.
"When observing at the cell level, resolution is often more important than magnification," Chen said.
less invasive
In addition to offering clearer images, the technology utilizes photons with long wavelengths and is therefore less invasive and more in-depth, Chen said.
"Compared to a single photon microscopy, which excites fluorophores with one single short-wavelength photon, multiphoton microscopy excite fluorophores with the energy of two long wavelength photons that arrive simultaneously," Chen said.
Asked when the technique could begin clinical trial, Lee said that installing a "window" in a person's abdomen might not get the greenlight from the hospital's ethics committee.
However, the "technology is promising and could be adapted in endoscopes to provide valuable information on patient diagnosis and treatment," Lee said.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
RSS