Posted on 09/09/2024 5:46:03 AM PDT by Red Badger
Illustration of a human hand as it might appear if the new tissue transparency effect proves effective in humans. Currently, the effect has only been tested with animals in a laboratory setting. Note that dyes may be harmful. Always exercise caution with dyes and do not consume directly, apply to people or animals, or otherwise misuse. Credit: Keyi “Onyx” Li/U.S. National Science Foundation Using common food dye, researchers make skin and muscle safely and reversibly transparent.
Scientists at Stanford University have developed a groundbreaking technique using food-safe dye to make animal tissues transparent, enhancing the visibility of internal organs. This innovation has potential applications ranging from medical diagnostics to cancer treatment and has shown promising results in both theoretical and practical tests.
Groundbreaking New Imaging Technique Unveiled Researchers have developed a new way to see organs within a body by rendering overlying tissues transparent to visible light.
The counterintuitive process—a topical application of food-safe dye—was reversible in tests with animal subjects, and may ultimately apply to a wide range of medical diagnostics, from locating injuries to monitoring digestive disorders to identifying cancers.
Stanford University researchers published the research ″Achieving optical transparency in live animals with absorbing molecules″ in the September 6, 2024, issue of Science.
″Looking forward, this technology could make veins more visible for the drawing of blood, make laser-based tattoo removal more straightforward, or assist in the early detection and treatment of cancers,″ said Stanford University assistant professor of materials science and engineering Guosong Hong, a U.S. National Science Foundation CAREER grantee who helped lead this work. ″For example, certain therapies use lasers to eliminate cancerous and precancerous cells, but are limited to areas near the skin’s surface. This technique may be able to improve that light penetration.″
VIDEO AT LINK...................
Researchers at Stanford University have developed a way to make skin and other tissues transparent using a simple food dye, a reversible technique with potential for revolutionizing internal medicine. In this clip, thin slices of chicken breast become transparent on exposure to the dye FD & C Yellow 5. Credit: U.S. National Science Foundation
An Illuminating Solution To master the new technique, the researchers developed a way to predict how light interacts with dyed biological tissues.
Those predictions required a deep understanding of light scattering, as well as the process of refraction, where light changes speed and bends as it travels from one material into another.
Scattering is the reason we cannot see through our body: Fats, fluids within cells, proteins, and other materials each have a different refractive index, a property that dictates how significantly an incoming light wave will bend.
In most tissues, those materials are closely compacted together, so the varied refractive indices cause light to scatter as it passes through. It is the scattering effect that our eyes interpret as opaque, colored, biological materials.
The researchers realized if they wanted to make biological material transparent, they had to find a way to match the different refractive indices so light could travel through unimpeded.
Close-up macro image of a gloved hand scooping undissolved yellow #5 dye from a glass jar. Credit: Matthew Christiansen/U.S. National Science Foundation Breakthrough With Tartrazine Building upon fundamental insights from the field of optics, the researchers realized dyes that are the most effective at absorbing light can also be highly effective at directing light uniformly through a wide range of refractive indices.
One dye the researchers predicted would be particularly effective was tartrazine, the food dye more commonly known as FD & C Yellow 5. It turns out, they were correct: When dissolved into water and absorbed into tissues, tartrazine molecules are perfectly structured to match refractive indices and prevent light from scattering, resulting in transparency.
Close-up macro image of syringe injected a solution of yellow #5 dye into white container filled with water. Credit: Matthew Christiansen/U.S. National Science Foundation From Theory to Practice The researchers first tested their predictions with thin slices of chicken breast. As tartrazine concentrations increased, the refractive index of the fluid within the muscle cells rose until it matched the refractive index of the muscle proteins – the slice became transparent.
Then, the researchers gently rubbed a temporary tartrazine solution on mice. First, they applied the solution to the scalp, rendering the skin transparent to reveal blood vessels crisscrossing the brain. Next, they applied the solution to the abdomen, which faded within minutes to show contractions of the intestine and movements caused by heartbeats and breathing.
The technique resolved features at the scale of microns, and even enhanced microscope observations. When the dye was rinsed off, the tissues quickly returned to normal opacity. The tartrazine did not appear to have long-term effects, and any excess was excreted in waste within 48 hours.
The researchers suspect that injecting the dye should lead to even deeper views within organisms, with implications for both biology and medicine.
Illustration of skin tissues as they normally appear, with photons scattering as they interact with surrounding materials. Credit: Keyi “Onyx” Li/U.S. National Science Foundation
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Illustration of skin tissues rendered transparent following saturation by FD & C Yellow 5, including the paths of photons reflecting off un-dyed tissues. Credit: Keyi “Onyx” Li/U.S. National Science Foundation
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Illustration of skin tissues rendered transparent following saturation by FD & C Yellow 5. Credit: Keyi “Onyx” Li/U.S. National Science Foundation
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Old Formulas Yield New Window Into Medicine
Supported by a range of federal and private grants, the project began as an investigation into how microwave radiation interacts with biological tissues.
In exploring optics textbooks from the 1970s and 1980s, the researchers found two key concepts: mathematical equations called Kramers-Kronig relations and a phenomenon called Lorentz oscillation, where electrons and atoms resonate within molecules as photons pass through.
Well studied for more than a century, yet not applied to medicine in this way, the tools proved ideal for predicting how a given dye can raise the refractive index of biological fluids to perfectly match surrounding fats and proteins.
Graduate researcher Nick Rommelfanger, working under an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, was one of the first to realize that the same modifications that make materials transparent to microwaves could be tailored to impact the visible spectrum, with potential applications in medicine.
Animation depicting the tissue transparency effect and how it might appear if tested with humans in the future. The latter part of the animation shows how photons interact with tissues at the cellular level, both with and without FD & C Yellow 5 saturation. Credit: Keyi “Onyx” Li/U.S. National Science Foundation
Harnessing Old Equipment for New Discoveries
Transitioning from theory to experimentation, postdoctoral researcher Zihao Ou—the study’s lead author—ordered a number of strong dyes and began the process of meticulously evaluating each for ideal optical properties.
Ultimately, the team grew to 21 students, collaborators, and advisors, involving several analytical systems.
One that proved critical was a decades-old ellipsometer nestled among newer equipment at the Stanford Nano Shared Facilities, part of the NSF National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI). The ellipsometer is a tool familiar to semiconductor manufacturing, not biology. However, in a possible first for medicine, the researchers realized it was perfect to predict the optical properties of their target dyes
Time-lapse images of blood vessels in the brain just beneath the skull of a sedated mouse, revealed without any surgery, incisions, or damaging the mouse’s bone or skin. By reversibly dyeing the tissues with FD & C Yellow 5 and using a technique called laser speckle contrast imaging, Stanford University researchers observed the blood flow within this living brain. Credit: Stanford University/Gail Rupert/NSF
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″Advanced research facilities constantly aim to strike the right balance by providing access to basic tools and expertise while making space for newer, larger, and more powerful instrumentation,″ said NSF Program Officer Richard Nash, who oversees the NSF NNCI. ″While a basic workhorse such as an ellipsometer would rarely make headlines, it nevertheless can play a crucial role when deployed for atypical uses like the case here. Open access to such instrumentation is foundational for making groundbreaking discoveries, as those instruments can be deployed in new ways to generate fundamental insights about scientific phenomena.″
With methods grounded in fundamental physics, the researchers hope their approach will launch a new field of study matching dyes to biological tissues based on optical properties, potentially leading to a wide range of medical applications.
″As an optics person, I’m amazed at how they got so much from exploiting the Kramers-Konig relationship,″ said NSF Program Officer Adam Wax, who has supported Hong’s work. ″Every optics student learns about them, but this team has used the equations to figure out how a strongly absorbing dye can make skin transparent. Using an NSF EAGER grant, Hong was able to step out in a bold new direction, a great example of how fundamental optics knowledge can be used to create new technologies, including in biomedicine.″
Instrumental NSF Support
″NSF′s support played an instrumental role in the success of this work,″ added Hong. ″The NSF CAREER award was my first major funding, and it arrived at a particularly challenging time, during the darkest moments of the pandemic. My lab faced significant difficulties generating data due to the shutdown, and the award was a vital springboard, enabling me to pursue some of our most exciting and innovative projects – including the research that culminated in this Science paper. The flexibility and encouragement from the NSF awards were crucial in keeping me on track and allowed me the freedom to explore new and uncharted territories in my field.″
Please note:
The technique described above has not been tested on humans. Dyes may be harmful. Always exercise caution with dyes and do not consume directly, apply to people or animals, or otherwise misuse.
For more on this research:
Researchers Make Skin Invisible With Common Food Dye
Reference:
“Achieving optical transparency in live animals with absorbing molecules” by Zihao Ou, Yi-Shiou Duh, Nicholas J. Rommelfanger, Carl H. C. Keck, Shan Jiang, Kenneth BrinsonJr, Su Zhao, Elizabeth L. Schmidt, Xiang Wu, Fan Yang, Betty Cai, Han Cui, Wei Qi, Shifu Wu, Adarsh Tantry, Richard Roth, Jun Ding, Xiaoke Chen, Julia A. Kaltschmidt, Mark L. Brongersma and Guosong Hong, 6 September 2024, Science.
DOI: 10.1126/science.adm6869
This research was supported by NSF grants NNCI 1542152 (NNCI), CAREER 2045120, EAGER 2217582, and GRFP 1656518. In addition to NSF, funders supporting the Stanford research included the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the U.S. Army Long Term Health Education and Training program, and a range of private foundations and institutions.
I’ll say it - time to bet on when the first porno using these dyes shows up.
That being said.... ewwh!
You just know that the Hollyweird types are mixing some up as we speak...................
That would,be super cool for surgeons who could see tumors, hernias, or whatever, and be very precise in operating. I had a pituitary tumor that was pushing agaisnt the optic nerve- scary surgery- there is a neoghbor who had it done and is blind now- so I went to Boston where they had a world renown surgeon and “state of the art” equiptiment that would allow him to see the tumor and nerve. Got there, had the surgery, then was told that the machine used to see and guide the surgeon malfunctioned, so he had to do the surgery the old way. . Woulda been cool if he coulda seen through the skin up into the cavity where tumor was without a machine.
All the lab mice lined up for the free scalp massages. “Me! I’m next!”
Bkmk
Used to sell the hell out of the stuff. Used in Mello Yello and Mountain Dew. Used in plastics. One of the most studied chemical compounds around.
Desserts and Confectionery: Ice cream and popsicles, Candy and gummy bears, Cake mixes and frostings, Puddings and gelatin desserts, Marshmallows, Cookies and biscuits, Beverages, Soft drinks and energy drinks, Powdered drink mixes, Fruit cordials and flavored alcoholic beverages,
Snacks: Flavored corn chips and nachos, Potato chips, Popcorn (microwave and cinema-popped), Chewing gum, Condiments and Spreads, Jams and jellies, Mustard, Pickles and pickle-based products (e.g. tartar sauce), Processed sauces, Cereals and Grains, Breakfast cereals, Flavored rice and pasta products,
Other Processed Foods Instant soups Canned vegetables Processed cheeses Yogurt Butter and margarine Non-Food Products
Tartrazine is also found in various non-food items: Medications (e.g. vitamins, antacids, cold medications) Cosmetics and personal care products (e.g. soaps, shampoos, lotions) Household cleaning products
A few years back IIRC, you can get the same result by using glycerin rubbed into the skin, though it takes longer to get there..................
They call it mellow yellow, quite rightly.
Donovan lives in California in Truckee. Saw him play at a bar that started out with no one in the audience. We were in the bar, and heard him singing. After investigation, it was him. Just a dozen of us. Good times.
I'll say! Best I can do is I ran smack into John Fahey as he was coming out of the men's room.
Also happened in Cincinnati. Coming out of a bar called Yesterday’s in Mt. Adam. The old location. There is a bar underneath it (Mt. Adams is hilly) and I heard a voice singing and investigated. Craig Fuller from Pure Prairie was singing. He knew the owner of the bar. About a dozen people, also.
You’ve got musician radar.
That’s a good one. Thanks for the laugh.
One more. Had Christmas Eve dinner in Dallas with Stevie Ray Vaughn. His last on earth. He was visiting the bluesman of New Zealand. Midge Marsten. Midge was staying at the condo of the President of my Rugby team. The Dallas Rugby Football Club. Midge was visiting Dallas to see an old childhood friend whose house with children had no spare room. Of course you would equate New Zealand and rugby. We were there for a couple of hours and in in good cheer as you can expect rugby players to be. Stevie came from an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and walked into the condo with about a dozen imbibing rugby players. He headed straight for the kitchen to get away from us. Dinner was very cordial and Stevie seemed kinda shy, and very nice. His wife was with him and she also was from New Zealand. Really good memories.
Reaching far, far back in my memory, I met Kevin Bacon when he was a teenager, and he and his brother Michael were starting a band, the Bacon Brothers. This was in his hometown, Philly, where I spent some years. Their dad and mom invited some “promising” young people over to their townhouse for dinner and then a performance by Michael and Kevin. I was there as the date of an invited medical student, altho I had previously and briefly met their dad, Edmund Bacon, through business. He was an esteemed city planner and UPenn professor.
So, whenever anyone plays Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, I usually can win. Even though he went mainly for the acting rather than the music.
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