Re:Hydrogel process developed at Stanford creates transparen...
by solox3 on Thursday April 11, 2013 @03:00PM
(#5533989)
Whole organ decellularization is not new - we've had transparent heart ECMs for quite some time. By loading the brain here with monomers, they kill the organ, whereas you can still use the transparent heart if you reload it with cells. Similar thing, different purposes.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Hydrogel process developed at Stanford creates transparen...
by RVijay007 on Thursday April 11, 2013 @09:03PM
(#5535918)
Just to clarify, this is not whole organ decellularization. The brain tissue, with it's neurons, glia, ECM, are left all in tact, along with their proteins, mRNA, etc.
Now, instead of having to slice the brain into micrometer slices just to understand architecture at a localized level, you can understand the architecture of the whole brain's network down to the cellular level, as well as do both immunohistochemistry and in-situ hybridization to probe what kind of proteins and molecular markers are present throughout the brain. This is nothing short of a revolution in experimental technique not only for neuroscience, but all of pathology.
Re:Hydrogel process developed at Stanford creates transparen...
by JulianMorrison on Thursday April 11, 2013 @03:30PM
(#5534211)
You kill it, but I have to wonder if you kill the information? it sounds like it could be used to do uploads, transhumanism style.