Microscopy & Imaging
The latest Business updates from the science industry
by Heather Hobbs
Molecular Imaging Instrument to Provide Insights into Drug Discovery and Cell Biology
NPL has launched the 3D OrbiSIMS – a new molecular imaging technology with the highest reported simultaneous spatial and mass resolutions. Such high performance is essential to reveal the biomolecular complexity in a single cell.
The concept was created by Professor Ian Gilmore, at NPL, who led the multidisciplinary team with experts in drug discovery at GSK and pharmaceutical science at the University of Nottingham and two leading mass spectrometry companies, Ion-TOF GmbH and Thermo Fisher Scientifi c, which developed the instrument’s technologies and integrated them into a single platform.
It typically costs around £1.4 billion to produce a new medicine. This cost could be reduced if candidates that fail at late stage were identifi ed earlier. Currently, one of the major challenges is to measure the intracellular drug concentration. As identifi ed in the Maxwell Report, high-resolution molecular imaging of drugs in the body is crucial in improving the effectiveness of drug discovery, by shedding light on fundamental biological processes and revealing the drug distribution at the cellular level and across the body.
The 3D OrbiSIMS could help identify where drugs go at the cellular level to help answer long-standing questions about whether drug
concentrations are suffi ciently high in the right places to have a therapeutic effect, or if the medicine is lodging within cellular components and causing toxicity. If anomalies were spotted earlier it might help to explain toxicities or lack of effi cacy of a medicine and reduce costly late-stage failures.
In basic biology, there is a growing realisation that cells, even of the same type, have tremendous variability. Breakthroughs in genomics are beginning to reveal this single-cell heterogeneity. Super- resolution optical microscopy with the use of fl uorescent labels has shone a new light on proteins, the machinery of life, with exquisite sub-cellular resolution.
However, the fl uorescent labelling strategy is not appropriate for drug molecules and metabolites (small but important molecules) that are dynamically created and consumed. The world of these metabolites at the single-cell scale remains mysterious and elusive.
Professor Ian Gilmore, Senior NPL Fellow and founder of the National Centre of Excellence in Mass Spectrometry Imaging (NiCE-MSI) at NPL said: “Mass spectrometry imaging is a rapidly developing method for biomedical imaging allowing new insights into fundamental biology and pharmacology. The 3D OrbiSIMS is
an exciting new advance as it pushes the boundaries for label-free molecular imaging to the single-cell scale. This is beginning to reveal a surprisingly large heterogeneity of single-cell drug uptake and the effects of the drug on metabolites. This is a major step in realising our dream of achieving ‘super-resolution’ metabolic imaging.”
John Lepore, Senior Vice President for Pipeline and Discovery at GSK, said:”Advances in the physical sciences and engineering are accelerating a revolution in healthcare. I am delighted that a multidisciplinary team, led by NPL in collaboration with GSK, has made a leap forward in high-resolution molecular imaging, the 3D OrbiSIMS. This powerful new capability allows the detection of drugs and metabolites with sub-cellular resolution, giving us the possibility of determining the precise distribution of a medicine and the effect it has, even within a cell. This will have important consequences for discovering, testing and making medicines.”
The 3D OrbiSIMS is already having impact on UK industry by providing new insight into technological problems where having the right molecules in the right place matters.
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Breakthrough with Potential Imaging Project
A project led by University of Bristol quantum physicist Hatim Salih and highlighted as one of the top breakthroughs of 2017, was implemented by academics from the University of Science and Technology of China, including Jian-Wei Pan, who experimentally transmitted information using quantum physics without the exchange of any particles.
Hatim Salih
This was based on a new quantum- communication scheme that does not require the transmission of any photons, proposed by Salih and colleagues at KACST in Riyadh and Tamu in Texas four years ago.
In 2017 a team led by Pan created such a system in the laboratory and transferred a simple image while sending (almost) no photons in the process.
Dubbed ‘counterfactual imaging’ the process could provide a solution to imaging delicate pieces of ancient art that cannot be exposed to direct light.
Responding to the recognition of his team’s contribution, Hatim Salih said: “You do science for the thrill of discovery and for further understanding of how the universe works- but it’s nice to get some recognition along the way, especially from your peers.”
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heather@intlabmate.com
RMS Flow Cytometry Medal
We are now accepting nominations for the 2018 RMS Medal for Flow Cytometry. The aim of the award is to celebrate and mark outstanding scientifi c achievements to scientists applying fl ow cytometry in the fi eld of immunology or cell biology.
The medal will be awarded once every two years at the fl owcytometryUK meetings, the next one being scheduled for July 2018. The award will normally be made to nominees who have engaged in independent research for less than 10 years.
Dr Karen Hogg, winner of the 2016 medal, is an experimental offi cer in the University of York’s Department of Biology’s Imaging and Cytometry Technology Facility. She has provided expert scientifi c service within the laboratory and has taken a lead role in the operation and method development of MoFlo Astrios Cell Sorter and Flow Analysers.
Dr Hogg is seen as a research and information resource both within and external to the Department of Biology and provides appropriate guidance, training and advice to users. She collaborates with academic and research staff on innovative techniques and applications, delivers lectures to the MSc students and tutors for internal and external practical courses.
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Nominations should be sent to Debbie Hunt. Nominators should submit a curriculum vitae for the nominee and a statement (maximum length 1 page) outlining the merits of the candidate and their suitability for the medal.
The Medal Series
The RMS Medal Series, awards scientifi c achievements in each of the Science Sections as well as awarding the unsung heroes and those who volunteer a huge amount of their time and energy to the RMS, helping the next generation of microscopists and include;
President’s Medal for Services to the Society Vice-Presidents’ Medal for Microscopy Research and Laboratory Support Alan Agar Medal for Electron Microscopy Medal for Light Microscopy Medal for Flow Cytometry Medal for Life Sciences
Medal for Innovation in Applied Microscopy for Materials Science Medal for Scanning Probe Microscopy
Further details
www.rms.org.uk
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