As the leader in tissue clearing and 3D tissue imaging, Visikol was asked to present this year at the AES conference on November 30th at 6PM in New Orleans on how best to implement these cutting edge tools in basic neuroscience research on epilepsy. One of the challenges with studying the brain in particular is that it is highly complex and heterogeneous with features extending many millimeters. The size and complexity of features within the brain limits the utility of conventional 2D histology wherein ultra-thin two dimensional slices are used for analysis. Therefore, many researchers have begun to employ 3D histological techniques where tissue clearing is combined with fluorescent labeling (e.g. fluorescent protein, immunofluorescence) and 3D microscopy (e.g. light sheet, confocal) to study the brain intact in 3D.
These techniques first came to the forefront in 2013 with the introduction of the CLARITY technique and today there are dozens of different tissue clearing approaches. However, most researchers who have tried to replicate these publications or adopt these techniques in their lab have had great difficulty. The reason for this is that every tissue, fixation technique, labeling method, label type and imaging modality require a unique protocol.
To help address these problems and to make tissue clearing easy and inexpensive, Visikol launched it Visikol HISTO tissue clearing technique in 2016.
The focus of this presentation is to provide background on different tissue clearing techniques and discuss their individual advantages and disadvantages as there is no technique that is ideal for all situations. The presentation will also cover how to adopt tissue clearing and how to optimize the labeling and tissue clearing process for a new application to minimize cost as well as time. If you cannot attend the AES presentation but still want to learn how tissue clearing can be used to enhance your research reach out to us at info@visikol.com.