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Imaging the biological microcosmos with a tiny telescope

biological

Science & Nature

We present the Schmidt objective, a novel astronomy-inspired concept for designing multi-immersion microscope objectives with high numerical aperture, long working distance and large field of view. The Schmidt objective uses a spherical mirror and a correction plate to focus light. It is well suited for high-resolution imaging deep inside cleared biological samples.

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Fig. 1: Concept of the multi-immersion Schmidt objective.

References

  1. Richardson, D. S. et al. Tissue clearing. Nat Rev. Methods Primers 1, 84 (2021). This review article presents an overview of tissue clearing.

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  2. Zhao, S. et al. Cellular and molecular probing of intact human organs. Cell. 180, 796–812.e19 (2020). This paper reports SHANEL, a method to clear and stain entire human organs.

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  3. Schmidt, B. Ein lichtstarkes komafreies Spiegelsystem. Zentral-Zeitung für Optik und Mechanik 52(Heft 2), 25–26 (1931). This paper is describes the Schmidt telescope, invented in 1930 by the Estonian-born optician and astronomer Bernhard Schmidt (1879–1935).


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  4. McConnell, G. et al. A novel optical microscope for imaging large embryos and tissue volumes with sub-cellular resolution throughout. eLife 5, e18659 (2016). This paper introduces the Mesolens, a microscope objective with a massively increased field of view.

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Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This is a summary of: Voigt, F. F. et al. Reflective multi-immersion microscope objectives inspired by the Schmidt telescope. Nat. Biotechnol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-023-01717-8 (2023).

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Imaging the biological microcosmos with a tiny telescope.
Nat Biotechnol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-023-01740-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-023-01740-9

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