The damage in the lungs caused by the SarsCoV2 virus has been seen as it had never before been possible, with details reaching down to the smallest capillaries, and has allowed us to better understand the cause of some serious complications due to Covid-19. The result, published in the journal Nature Methods, was obtained thanks to the supermicroscope of the European Center for Synchrotron Light, the ESFR (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility). The research was coordinated by University College London.
After the debut in late 2020, with the new technology of the European supermicroscope, images of the lungs reach details impossible for any other tomographic device. They have been obtained with an innovative technique to 3D scan human organs and obtain maps that can be manipulated and zoomed to a cellular scale. Called Hierarchical Phase-Contrast Tomography (HiP-CT), the technique is based on the very powerful ESRF X-rays, about 100 billion times brighter than the classic X-rays used in radiographs.
The detail achieved made it possible to verify that the virus damages the capillaries by creating a sort of short circuit between two different blood networks: the one that oxygenates the blood with the one that feeds the lung tissue. By joining, the two networks lose efficiency, reducing the functioning capacity of the lungs, a phenomenon that had already been hypothesized by some researchers but which had not yet been possible to confirm.
The new 3D images of lungs affected by SarsCoV2 are part of a larger project based on ESRF technology and which aims to create a real Atlas of human organs, with very high resolution scans of the brain, heart and kidneys too. Images that can be used by doctors and research centers around the world. “The Atlas – said Peter Lee, from University College London and head of the project – covers a previously little explored scale of human anatomy, down to details of a few microns”.
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Source From: Ansa
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