Clearly Brainy

The next time someone asks you to clear your head, think twice. This mouse brain has been soaked in a mixture of chemicals to make it almost transparent. Scientists perfected this 'clearing' cocktail to allow high powered lasers to zip through the tissue, triggering artificial fluorescent proteins in some of the cells inside. Light sheet microscopy, a gentle way of capturing highly detailed images, can now zoom in on single neurons (green), and red-coloured cancer cells. In the brain, as well as many other organs, travelling or metastatic cancer cells can be difficult to track down, and how they manage to move is still mysterious. This new technique gives cancer cells nowhere to hide, and may help to predict how aggressive cancers spread in humans.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Video from work by Hiroki R. Ueda and colleagues
• Department of Systems Pharmacology, University of Tokyo, Japan
• Video/image copyright held by the original authors
• Research published in Cell Reports, July 2017