intravital microscopy
Cool Videos: Looking Inside Living Cells
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Cell biologists now possess an unprecedented set of laboratory tools to look inside living cells and study their inner workings. Many of these tools have only recently appeared, while others have deeper historical roots. Combining the best of the old with the best of the new, researchers now have the power to explore the biological underpinnings of life in ways never seen before.
That’s the story of this video from the lab of Roberto Weigert, an intramural researcher with NIH’s National Cancer Institute and National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. Weigert is a cell biologist who specializes in intravital microscopy (IVM), an extremely high-resolution imaging tool that traces its origins to the 19th century. What’s unique about IVM is its phenomenal resolution can be used in living animals, allowing researchers to watch biological processes unfold in organs under real physiological conditions and in real time.
Cool Videos: Spying on Cancer Cell Invasion
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
If you’re a fan of the Mission: Impossible spy thrillers, you might think that secret agent Ethan Hunt has done it all. But here’s a potentially life-saving mission that his force has yet to undertake: spying on cancer cells. Never fear—some scientific sleuths already have!
So, have a look at this bio-action flick recently featured in the American Society for Cell Biology’s 2015 Celldance video series. Without giving too much of the plot away, let me just say that it involves cancer cells escaping from a breast tumor and spreading, or metastasizing, to other parts of the body. Along the way, those dastardly cancer cells take advantage of collagen fibers to make a tight-rope getaway and recruit key immune cells, called macrophages, to serve as double agents to aid and abet their diabolical spread.
