by Jennifer Kowalewski

The OUµCT, a high-end piece of technology housed at the Edison Biotechnology Institute (EBI) on the Ridges, opens up worlds of exploration and possibilities by its precision imaging of the insides of small organisms and objects. The power of this microCT scanner greatly advances the research capabilities of Ohio University researchers.

CT scanners use X-rays to peer inside a subject by digitally “slicing” the subject like a loaf of bread. Lawrence Witmer, Ph.D., professor of anatomy, says conventional CT scanners, such as those used in hospitals, look at slices of the human body in 1- to 5-mm. sections. The OUµCT, which serves several university departments, can look at a considerably smaller slice, one around 0.027 millimeters — one-third the diameter of a human hair. This results in higher resolutions of structures within an organism. The OUµCT is capable of resolutions of 92, 45 and 27 microns.

“This scanner gives us a tremendous ability to look inside an organism,” Witmer says. “But beyond that, it allows us to digitally extract, measure and visualize aspects of structure in ways not possible just a few years ago.”

The university’s nanobiotech research initiative, which included OU-COM researchers as well as those from across the university, pushed for the purchase of the $250,000 scanner. Unlike larger CT scanners, in which a whole human body fits inside, the OUµCT allows researchers to see inside organisms no larger than an orange.

Witmer and his team put the scanner through its paces and created protocols and procedures on how to scan everything from lab mice to dinosaur fossils. Also, Witmer and his team have developed a training program for those using the OUµCT.

As he showed the inside of a mouse, scanned into the computer via the scanner, he explains the device showed the fat below the surface of the skin in a 3D model created via a computer program. The OUµCT allows researchers to take very precise measurements, as well as map internal organs, he says.

David Wight, Ph.D., director of EBI, says the OUµCT allows the research facility to perform excellent soft-tissue analysis. Edison scientists focus on diabetes, obesity and cancer, including formation of tumors, often utilizing mice models. If they had wanted a scan before the university bought the microCT scanner, the mice would have been shipped out and risked being contaminated, making the scan a one shot deal.

With this scanner in place, researchers can make scans of their test subjects over time.

“It allows us to do the kinds of soft-tissue analysis we could not do before,” Wight says. “We can monitor tumor growth over time. We can show fat development on obese animals. This makes it much easier to do longitudinal studies.”

“This state-of-the-art equipment allows us to be competitive in writing grant proposals,” he adds. He says the equipment came to the university as a result of the University Research Priority, which focuses on health and biomedical research.

The OUµCT has taken images of 200 million-year-old dinosaur fossils, as well as an alligator embryo, the temporomandibular joint of a pig, the stomach of a lobster and the front end of a cockroach. It allowed researchers to see inside the dinosaur skull without breaking apart the fossilized structure.

Some of its 3D images were on display in posters at the college’s Research Day.

“I am really excited that Ohio University has this kind of technology,” Witmer says. “Even some bigger institutions don’t have this state-of-the-art scanner.

“We still don’t know all the things we can do with this. We have a great opportunity to be creative and original—to answer questions we never even thought we could ask.”