Letter from the President: Ringing in exciting new developments with the new year
As we begin each new year, it seems there is a wide open canvas stretched in front of us ready to hold our evolving ideas and new creations. What we accomplish in 2023 will be based on our prior years of work, knowledge and insights. All of us at MBF Bioscience, and I suspect many of you, reflect at this time of year revisit our goals and focus on what’s next.
We are thrilled to contribute to the current wave of science leading us all forward. Some of the technology energizing us at the beginning of 2023 are the following:
Whole Brain Imaging — as neuroscience advances with new developments in whole brain imaging, we have products to support the next wave of discoveries with our ClearScope® light sheet theta microscope, NeuroInfo® for analyzing distributions of cells and biomarkers throughout the brain, Neurolucida® 360 for reconstructing neurons and pathways, Stereo Investigator® – Cleared Tissue Edition for unbiased stereology in whole brain images, and BrainMaker® for performing whole brain visualization and quantification using traditional serial sections.
Our light sheet theta microscope, ClearScope, enables imaging of even the largest specimens of cleared tissue. We’ve partnered with the inventor of light sheet theta microscopy, Dr. Raju Tomer of Columbia University, to create an exceptional microscope with unprecedented capabilities. The commercial development of ClearScope has been made possible through an SBIR grant from the NIMH.
So, what lies further ahead?
As you know, science continually moves forward — we’re thrilled to be partnering with scientists powering the next wave:
We’re fueling exciting developments in expansion microscopy in collaboration with Dr. Edward Boyden at the Synthetic Neurobiology Group from MIT as we develop new software for new, unprecedented new quantitative analyses of expansion microscopy specimens. Thanks to an SBIR grant from the NIMH, we are hard at work creating new software for this exciting new technology. Expansion microscopy holds the potential to revolutionize how we look at the brain and will undoubtedly create new understandings about how the brain works.
These are remarkable times for stunning technical developments in multiphoton in vivo microscopy. Thanks to SBIR awards from the Brain Initiative and the NIMH, we are working with Dr. Kaspar Podgorski at the Allen Institute to further develop and commercialize the SLAP2 microscope for imaging synaptic activity at kilohertz rates. We are also working with Dr. Alipasha Vaziri at the Rockefeller University to produce commercial Light Beads microscopy products.
As artificial intelligence (AI) transforms technology all around us, we’re collaborating with Drs. Laura Brattain and Lars Gjesteby at the Lincoln Labs at MIT to make neuroscience faster and more accurate by tackling unsolved problems in neuron tracing and reconstruction. Again, thanks to funding from the Brain Initiative and the NIMH, we are at the forefront in developing new approaches to speed the pace of scientific discovery.
We’re excited to see what happens with these technologies soon and, of course, we intend to bring solutions to YOUR lab for these exciting trends in the near term future.
In times like these, we want to make sure we’re as connected with you as we can possibly be, no matter what 2023 might bring. Whether in the physical or digital world, we want to be as helpful and available to you as we can possibly be.
If you click here, we’ll send you a complimentary NeuroArt calendar, with some of the best and most brilliant images submitted last year. We typically give these out at conferences and other in-person events, but we’d like to get one sent to you, so you can display it wherever you’re working, and be reminded of illuminated, insightful neuroscience, no matter where you are.
May the sunrise of the new year of 2023 herald unimagined discoveries! Here’s hoping for a more fulfilling new year for you and those you love, and we can’t wait to be interacting with you again soon.
Wishing you the happiest of New Years,
Jack Glaser
