This will display six donated control organs: brain, lung (of a COVID-19 patient), heart, two kidneys and spleen. With support from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the UCL-led team are using HiP-CT to produce a Human Organ Atlas, launching today. Using HiP-CT to create the Human Organ Atlas ( link) ESRF-EBS has allowed us to go from deciphering the secrets of fossils to seeing the human body as never before. This is a real breakthrough, as human organs have low contrast and so are very difficult to image in detail with the current available techniques. This allows us to see in 3D the incredibly small vessels within a complete human organ, enabling us to distinguish a blood vessel from the surrounding tissue, and even to observe some specific cells. However, these techniques did not adequately address the extent of the changes and clotting in fine blood vessels of whole lungs.вЂќДanny Jonigk, Professor of Thoracic Pathology, (Hannover Medical School, Germany) said, вЂњ By combining our molecular methods with the HiP-CT multiscale imaging in lungs affected by COVID-19 pneumonia, we gained a new understanding how shunting between blood vessels in a lungвЂ™s two vascular systems occurs in COVID-19 injured lungs, and the impact it has on oxygen levels in our circulatory system.'Дr Paul Tafforeau, lead scientist at ESRF, said, вЂњ The idea to develop this new HiP-CT technique came after the beginning of the global pandemic, by combining several techniques that were used at the ESRF to image large fossils, and using the increased sensitivity of the new Extremely Brilliant Source at the ESRF, ESRF-EBS. Maximilian Ackermann MD (University Medical Center Mainz), clinical user of the technique, said, вЂњ Shortly after the beginning of the global pandemic, we demonstrated that COVID-19 is a systemic vascular disease using histopathological (optical imaging of tissue) and molecular methods. For understanding human anatomy this is also a very exciting technique, being able to see tiny organ structures in 3D in their correct spatial context is key to understanding how our bodies are structured and how they therefore function.вЂќ As we start to link our HiP-CT images to clinical images through AI techniques, we will - for the first time - be able to highly accurately validate ambiguous findings in clinical images. (Credit S.CandГ©/ESRF)Дr Claire Walsh (UCL Mechanical Engineering) said, вЂњ The ability to see organs across scales like this will really be revolutionary for medical imaging. Scientists Claire Walsh, UCL (left) and Paul Tafforeau, ESRF (right), during experiments at the ESRF.

A clinical CT scan only resolves blood vessels that are about 100 times larger, around 1mm in diameter.

Due to this intense brilliance, researchers can view blood vessels five microns in diameter (a tenth of the diameter of a hair) in an intact human lung. The technique uses X-rays supplied by the ESRF-EBS, now the brightest source of X-rays in the world at 100 billion times brighter than a hospital X-ray. HiP-CT enables 3D mapping across a range of scales, allowing clinicians to view the whole organ as never before by imaging it as a whole and then zooming down to the cellular level. Such cross-linking stops the patientвЂ™s blood from being properly oxygenated, which was previously hypothesised but not proven.

Using HiP-CT, the research team, which includes clinicians in Germany and France, saw how severe COVID-19 infection вЂshuntsвЂ™ blood between the two separate systems вЂ“ the capillaries that oxygenate the blood and those that feed the lung tissue itself. Scientists from UCL and the ESRF have used a revolutionaryВ new imaging technology called Hierarchical Phase-Contrast Tomography (HiP-CT), to scan donated human organs, including lungs from a COVID-19 donor.

Rays of hope 2019