Why Visualize Tissue Engineering?
The development of tissue engineered products is limited by the lack of laboratory imaging techniques which are capable of non-destructive imaging of the three-dimensional morphology as well as the cell response of a tissue engineering scaffold. In this project, a collinear optical coherence/confocal fluorescence microscope capable of high-resolution imaging of porous scaffolds has been developed. The combined data is then visualized in our interactive, immersive visualization environment in order to gain new insights into characteristics that promote cell growth and propagation. The ability to evaluate cell scaffold viability in this way will enable the developers of tissue engineered materials to minimize expensive and time-consuming animal studies.
