The latest Business updates from the science industry
Microscopy & Imaging by Heather Hobbs Microfossil Data Narrows Window for the Origin of Life
Dominic Papineau and Matt Dodd in the Geological Spectroscopy Laboratory. Copyright: UCL (UK)
Bubbling submarine-hydrothermal vents are believed to be the places where life on Earth emerged. Whether that happened 3.5 or 3.7 billion years ago or even further into the past is subject of intense discussion in the scientifi c community. Why? Because it is hard to determine whether or not chemical traces in very old sedimentary rocks – such as isotopically light graphitic carbon are metamorphosed products of biological organic material. Dr Dominic Papineau, a geologist who has long followed the tracks of early life and PhD student Matthew Dodd, both from University College London (UK), along with colleagues used a microscopic approach to look for the answer. With optical microscopy they imaged thin sections from rocks found in the Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt (NSB) in Canada that once belonged to a very early oceanic crust. They identifi ed a suite of chemical and morphology features indicative of microbial activity.
Through chemical imaging performed with a WITec alpha300R confocal Raman microscope, the scientists could identify the compounds – graphitic carbon, calcite, haematite, quartz, magnetite and apatite - therein and their spatial distribution. Modern iron-oxidizing bacteria living in hot vents can form Fe-containing fi laments and tubes. For that reason along with isotopically depleted carbon and biominerals apatite and carbonate, scientists believe that similar structures in much older rocks indicate a biogenic origin. Similar structures found in the Løkken jasper in Norway that geologically is somewhat younger than the NSB had already been attributed to mineralised bacteria. So the authors of the current study suggested that the mineral assemblages they had seen are also of biogenic origin. They concluded: “Preservation in the NSB of carbonaceous material and minerals in diagenetic rosettes and granules that formed from the oxidation of biomass, together with the presence of tubes similar in mineralogy and morphology to those in younger jaspers interpreted as microfossils, reveal that life established a habitat near submarine-hydrothermal vents before 3,770 million years ago and possibly as early as 4,290 million years ago.”
Dominic Papineau wrote: “We used the WITec micro-Raman to map, down to sub-micron scales, the minerals associated with the oldest microfossils on Earth. This was vital to the discovery of key structures like rosettes, granules as well as minerals associated with the fi lamentous microfossils such as micron-size apatite, carbonate and graphitic carbon, all of which point to the metamorphosed mineralised product of decayed microbial organic matter.”
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Partnership to Create Database of Annotated Tissue Images
LabPON and Royal Philips are to create a digital database of massive aggregated sets of annotated pathology images and big data utilising Philips IntelliSite Pathology Solution, that will provide pathologists with a wealth of clinical information for the development of image analytics algorithms for computational pathology and pathology education.
As one of the largest pathology laboratories in the Netherlands, LabPON will contribute its repository of approximately 300,000 whole slide images (WSI) it prospectively creates each year to the database. This will contain de- identifi ed datasets of annotated cases that are manually commented by the pathologist and will comprise of a wide variety of tissue and disease types, as well as other pertinent diagnostic information to facilitate deep learning.
“Deep learning focuses on the development of advanced computer
programs that automatically understand and digitally map tissue images in considerable detail; the more data available, the more refi ned the computer analysis will be,” said Peter Hamilton, Group Leader Image Analytics at Philips Digital Pathology Solutions. “Together, LabPON and Philips have the competence and skills to realise this.”
“The role of the pathologist remains important by making the defi nitive diagnosis, which has a high impact on the patient’s treatment. Software tools could help to relieve part of the pathologists’ work such as identifying tumour cells, counting mitotic cells or identifying perineural and vaso- invasive growth, as well carrying out measurements in a more accurate and precise way,” said Alexi Baidoshvili, pathologist at LabPON. “This ultimately could help to improve the quality of diagnosis and make it more objective.”
Next to the development of computational algorithms for diagnostic use, Philips intends to make available the database to research institutions and other partners through its translational research platform. This could enable selected parties to interrogate and combine massive datasets with the goal to discover new insights that ultimately could be translated into new personalised treatment options for patients.
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