Taking 3D Images of Living Cells 14 February 2013 Two young
researchers at Switzerland's École Polytechnique Fédérale de
Lausanne (EPFL) have designed a device that can create 3D images
of living cells within minutes, a leap in the world of
microscopy similar to the advancement from photography to live
TV. The device is being developed by Yann Cotte and Fatih Toy
under the supervision of Christian Depeursinge, head of the
Microvision and Microdiagnostics Group in EPFL's School of
Engineering. The new device, which combines holographic
microscopy and computational image processing, enables real-time
observation of living cells at the nanoscale and tracking of
their reactions to any kind of stimulus without the use of
contrast dyes or fluorescents, thus removing the risk of results
being distorted by the presence of foreign substances. With the
device, 3D images of living biological tissues can be taken at
an extremely precise resolution of less than 100 nanometers,
1000 times smaller than the diameter of a hum