In situ investigation of mitochondrial function using Digital Inline Holographic Microscopy (DIHM) technology

Resolution Optics Inc develops and manufactures a line of high resolution, digital inline holographicmicroscopes. This technology allows building and analyzing 3D holographic representation of the imagedobject. It is expected to significantly advance imaging approaches currently used in life sciences. At currentstage the equipment developed by the company allows to perform real-time holographic imaging of simple liveorganisms (bacteria). Next milestone in technology development will be further improvement of the imagingequipment which will allow imaging of much more complicated eukaryotic cells (including mammalian cells).To achieve this goal Resolution Optics will collaborate with Dr. Pavlov in performing focused experimentswhich are expected to lead to the development of a new and improved device. Specific experiments willinvolve real time holographic imaging of morphological alternations of tissue culture as well as primarymammalian cardiac cells (prepared in collaboration with Dr. Rose's lab) under conditions of stress. Theaccuracy of experimental data will be verified by comparison of holographic images of live cells with those offixed cells previously obtained by electron microscopy. Dr. Pavlov has more than 10 years of experienceworking with mammalian cell culture models of stress induced death. He will contribute to the project byproviding model cells for imaging as well as by designing experimental protocols. It is anticipated that theseexperiments will lead to the development of a new improved microscope which will find broad applications inbasic biological and medical research dealing with studies of cell function.