Lensless Camera Captures Cellular-Level, 3D Details in Living Tissue
Published:07 Mar.2022 Source:Rice University
The research team’s FlatCam, a lensless device that channels light through a mask and directly onto a camera sensor, aimed primarily outward at the world at large. The raw images looked like static, but a custom algorithm used the data they contained to reconstruct what the camera saw. The new device looks inward to image micron-scale targets like cells and blood vessels inside the body, even through the skin. Bio-FlatScope captures images that no lensed camera can see -- showing, for example, dynamic changes in the fluorescent-tagged neurons in running mice.
One advantage over other microscopes is that light captured by Bio-FlatScope can be refocused after the fact to reveal 3D details. And without lenses, the scope’s field of view is the size of the sensor (at close range to the target) or wider, without distortion. A small, low-cost Bio-FlatScope could eventually look for signs of cancer or sepsis or become a valuable tool for endoscopy, said Robinson, who teamed with colleagues at Rice’s Neuroengineering Initiative on the project.