Transparent Mouse Provides ‘Clear’ View of Tissues for Researchers
Hey, you know what would help in studying body and brain tissue? If all of that other tissue around it didn’t get in the way and block the view. And upon that notion was born the transparent mouse. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (CIT) were tired of the messy and sometimes imprecise process of dissecting and slicing organs usually used for microscopic organ study. So they created an improved version of a chemical clarification process that produced the glassy little fellow you see above. Don’t worry, this isn’t a live transparent mouse, not that one could survive the technique that makes one transparent. According to New Scientist, the process removes lipids, fat and other waxy substances that block light, and replaces them with a clear gel through the use of chemicals. An earlier version of the process developed at Stanford University used chemicals and electricity in a way that limited the amount of tissue that could be transformed, but CIT team’s refined version actually pumps detergent through the animal’s circulatory system and can render a whole mouse