Novel microscope for biological imaging

A new form of ‘light sheet imaging’, has been developed by an interdisciplinary team led by Professor Kishan Dholakia and Dr Tom Vettenburg of the School of Physics. A light sheet microscope creates 3D images of cells by seeing how a sample lights up slice-by-slice when moved through a sheet of light. This sheet would ideally be as thin as a razor’s edge to be able to probe the inner workings of all cells, yet gentle as light to avoid cell damage. The St Andrews group achieved this by exploiting a beam of light that moves on a peculiarly curved trajectory. The beam is known as the Airy beam after the British astronomer Sir George Airy consists of multiple parallel sheets of light, achieving high resolution without being thin. Using this method, the light is used more efficiently to see the inner details of hundreds of cells with clarity.

It is hoped that the development will lead to improved understanding of biological development, cancer, and diseases such as Alzheimer, Parkinson, and Huntington that affect the human brain.
Partners are sought for the commercialization of the technology.

The work was funded by a UK EPSRC Programme Grant and carried out with St Andrews colleagues Dr Heather Dalgarno and Jonathan Nylk (School of Physics & Astronomy), Dr David Ferrier and Clara Coll-Lladó (Scottish Oceans Institute), Dr Tomáš Cižmár (School of Medicine), and Professor Frank Gunn-Moore (School of Biology).
Nature Methods, "Light-sheet microscopy using an Airy beam", doi:10.1038/nmeth.2922

Company launched with aim to improve fish quality

A new company, which aims to exploit cutting-edge genetics technology to improve the quality of the fish we eat, has been launched in St Andrews. With support from local law firm Murray Donald and the Biotechnological and Biological Research Council (BBSRC), Xelect, is primarily focusing on the development of genetic markers which will pinpoint the most valuable of the natural variations which occur in all fish. Xelect was formed by CEO and Co-Founder Professor Ian Johnston, Director, Scottish Oceans Institute and his former PhD student, Thomas Ashton, Executive Director and Co-Founder. The first products are markers for superior meat yield and flesh quality in Atlantic salmon, which are now available for licensing worldwide. [press release] [more..]

One-third: minimum level of fish needed for seabirds

An international group of scientists co-led by Professor Ian Boyd, Director of the Scottish Oceans Institute, has shown that many seabirds begin to suffer when the food available for them in the ocean declines below a critical level of about one-third of the maximum amount of food observed in long-term studies. They have shown that this critical level is about the same for seabirds wherever they happen to be in the world and provides a minimum food level needed to sustain seabird productivity long-term.

Their study – the most comprehensive ever undertaken – covers birds from the Arctic to the Antarctic and from the Pacific to the Atlantic. [more] [‘Science’ article]