Enhanced Tissue Clearing Solution, Clearing-Enhanced 3D (Ce3D), Compatible with Advanced Fluorescence Microscopy Imaging

NIH immunologists have created a solution, Clearing-enhanced 3D (Ce3D), that can be used to make entire organs extremely transparent (top right panel). This allows the tissue to be imaged using advanced fluorescence microscopy techniques (bottom panel). Unlike current tissue clearing solutions, the Ce3D tissue clearing solution is robustly compatible with a variety of staining methods, and preserves tissue morphology and reporter fluorescence. Ce3D enabled microscopy provides unprecedented insight into the spatial organization of cells within intact organs. Further, when Ce3D enabled microscopy is coupled with multiplexed staining and a newly developed analysis pipeline, investigators are able to extensively characterize densely packed cells in situ, providing advantages to phenotyping cells with flow cytometric techniques.

This technology is available for licensing for commercial development in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 209 and 37 CFR part 404, as well as for further development and evaluation under a research collaboration.

Potential Commercial Applications:		Competitive Advantages:
Research reagent – can be applied to a variety of biological disciplines Diagnostic medical imaging reagent – characterization of disease state/condition		Simple, quick and inexpensive procedure that has been extensively validated Generates excellent tissue transparency, resulting in high quality images Compatible with highly multiplexed staining/labeling techniques Fluorescence is maintained in diverse fluorescent proteins and fluorophores Enables quantitative analysis of tissue composition and cellular distribution in whole organs, and has advantages over flow cytometric techniques

Inventors:

Ronald Germain (NIAID)  ➽ more inventions...

Michael Gerner (NIAID)  ➽ more inventions...

Weizhe Li (NIAID)  ➽ more inventions...


Intellectual Property:
US Application No. 62/380,593
PCT Application No. PCT/US2017/049133
US Application No. 16/328,553

Publications:
Li W, et al. PMID: 28808033 - PMCID: PMC5584454

Collaboration Opportunity:
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases is seeking statements of capability or interest from parties interested in collaborative research to further develop, evaluate, or commercialize tissue-clearing technologies. For collaboration opportunities, please contact: Natalie Greco, Ph.D. at Natalie.Greco@nih.gov or 301-761-7898


Licensing Contact:
Daniel Lee, J.D.
Email: daniel.lee5@nih.gov
Phone: 301-761-6327

OTT Reference No: E-168-2016-0
Updated: May 15, 2018