New microscope looks into cells in living fish

Microscopes provide insights to the structure and dynamics of cells, in particular when they remain in their natural, living environment. However, viewing cells of living higher organisms with a microscope is very difficult. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, and the US National Institutes of Health have now developed a new method to visualize cell structures just an eighth of a micrometer in size in living fish larvae. In the new microscopy method, the object is not illuminated completely, but only at a certain spot with special light. This minimizes scattered light, while sharply illuminating the desired detail. A series of images taken at variable illumination is then processed by a computer to obtain an overall image. Smart illumination even allows for adjusting the depth of field, to image various depth levels and combine them into a three-dimensional image using the computer.