NIH immunologists have created a solution, Clearing-enhanced 3D (Ce3D), that can be used to make entire organs extremely transparent (top right panel). This allows the tissue to be imaged using advanced fluorescence microscopy techniques (bottom panel). Unlike current tissue clearing solutions, the Ce3D tissue clearing solution is robustly compatible with a variety of staining methods, and preserves tissue morphology and reporter fluorescence. Ce3D enabled microscopy provides unprecedented insight into the spatial organization of cells within intact organs. Further, when Ce3D enabled microscopy is coupled with multiplexed staining and a newly developed analysis pipeline, investigators are able to extensively characterize densely packed cells in situ, providing advantages to phenotyping cells with flow cytometric techniques.

This technology is available for licensing for commercial development in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 209 and 37 CFR part 404, as well as for further development and evaluation under a research collaboration.