karampodi Posted November 7, 2014 Author Report Posted November 7, 2014 okyo (AFP) - Invisibility may still be the stuff of fictional works like Harry Potter, but researchers in Japan have developed a way to make mice almost totally transparent. Using a method that almost completely removes colour from tissue -- and kills the mouse in the process -- researchers say they can now examine individual organs or even whole bodies without slicing into them, offering a "bigger picture" view of the problems they are working on. The techniques will give scientists a "new understanding of the 3D structure of organs and how certain genes are expressed in various tissues," said Kazuki Tainaka, the lead author of a research paper published in the US-based Cell magazine. "We were very surprised that the entire body of infant and adult mice could be made nearly transparent," he said in a statement issued by Japanese research institute RIKEN and its collaborators
Recommended Posts