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| Heidelberg,
Jena, 31 March 2005 |
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The transparent organism EMBLEM and
Carl Zeiss give labs a unique look at life |
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Press
Release 31 March 2005 [PDF]
[Deutsch]
A novel high-tech
microscope will be brought to the marketplace, giving
laboratories everywhere fascinating new insights into living
organisms. EMBLEM Technology Transfer GmbH
[EMBLEM], the commercial entity of the European
Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL], announced today
that it has signed a licensing deal with technological leader
Carl Zeiss to commercialize a new technology called SPIM
[Selective Plane Illumination Microscopy].
"Microscopes have to evolve to keep up with the demands
of modern science," says Ernst Stelzer, whose group at
EMBL developed SPIM. "Molecular biology has graduated
upwards from studying single molecules – now we need to
watch complex, three-dimensional processes in whole,
living organisms. SPIM allows us to do that with
unprecedented quality."
In a series of technical innovations, Stelzer and his
colleagues [in particular Jim Swoger and Jan Huisken]
have made it possible to make three-dimensional films of
the inner workings of living organisms at a much higher
level of detail than ever before.
One innovation of SPIM is the illumination of a sample
from the side rather than along the traditional view of the
microscope lens. This eliminates a problem that has
plagued three-dimensional microscopy in the past:
researchers could obtain excellent resolution in the plane
of the microscope slide, but resolution along the direction
of the viewer was very fuzzy. In SPIM, a sample is passed
through a thin sheet of light, capturing high-quality images
layer-by-layer. The sample can be rotated and viewed
along different directions, further eliminating the blurry and
unwanted light which prevented scientists from looking
deep into tissues in the past. The entire procedure is very
fast and in a computer supported post-processing step,
one or more stacks of images are assembled into a highresolution
film.
Another advantage of SPIM is that the specimen is kept
alive in a liquid-filled chamber, allowing scientists to track
developmental processes like the formation of eyes and
the brain in embryonic fish or other model organisms.
The presentation of SPIM at scientific conferences has
generated a flood of requests for the instrument.
"We were extremely pleased to have found Carl Zeiss as
an excellent partner to translate this technology into a
product," says Dr. Martin Raditsch, Deputy Managing
Director of EMBLEM.
EMBL Director-General Prof. Fotis Kafatos and EMBL
Group Leader Dr. Ernst Stelzer met with the Member of the
Executive Board of the Carl Zeiss Group, Dr. Norbert
Gorny and with the Executive Vice President and General
Manager of the Business Group Microscopy from Carl
Zeiss, Dr. Ulrich Simon, last month to finalize the details.
"We see the SPIM technology as an ideal approach for
satisfying the growing demand in highly resolved image
information from living organisms. The products based on
this technology will form a perfect match with our lines of
confocal and multiphoton 3D-imaging systems," says Dr.
Simon.
The agreement between EMBL and Carl Zeiss includes a
common cooperation project for method optimization and
product development.
Press Contacts
Trista Dawson
EMBL Press Officer, European Molecular Biology Laboratory,
Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
Tel: +49 [0] 6221 387-8452
E-mail: trista.dawson@embl.de
Website: www.embl.de
Gudrun Vogel
Carl Zeiss Communication, Jena, Germany
Tel: +49 [0] 3641 64-2770
E-mail: g.vogel@zeiss.de
Website: www.zeiss.de |
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![General Manager of the Business Group Microscopy [Carl Zeiss] Dr. Ulrich Simon, Member of the Executive Board [Carl Zeiss] Dr. Norbert
Gorny, EMBL Director-General Fotis C. Kafatos, EMBLEM Deputy Managing Director Dr. Martin Raditsch, EMBL Group Leader Ernst Stelzer](../../../../../images/press/press05/press31mar05s.jpg)