Fluorescence imaging explained: Microscopic life in many colors

Life is aglow — literally. Scientists harness a phenomenon known as fluorescence to reveal the cellular secrets underlying health and disease otherwise destined to remain hidden from view.

Imagine a future in human health where cardiac muscles damaged by heart disease or spines devastated by cord injuries don’t just scar over but could be regrown to resume normal, healthy function. To realize this dream, scientists work to visualize the incredible power of other organisms — such as zebrafish and flatworms — to regrow their tissues and organs following injury.

Their tool of choice? Fluorescence microscopy.

Fluorescence works like a visual microphone, amplifying otherwise inaccessible cellular and subcellular details and interactions. Given the forceful link between seeing and knowing, it’s perhaps impossible to imagine modern science without fluorescence microscopy. Today, engineers are pushing a wide array of fluorescence imaging approaches to visualize biology with ever higher precision, at greater depths, and in more dynamic live imaging contexts.

This is the kind of fundamental knowledge that will be critical to one day transforming the way we treat human injury and disease. And it’s all made possible by light.

For more, visit our multimedia project at: https://morgridge.org/feature/fluorescence-imaging-primer/