This is who runs this account
04.02.2026 17:12 — 👍 240 🔁 37 💬 4 📌 5
This is who runs this account
04.02.2026 17:12 — 👍 240 🔁 37 💬 4 📌 5
Read the spotlight here: focalplane.biologists.com/2026/01/13/i...
Read the whole paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@crick.ac.uk @psich.bsky.social
Here's a spotlight article on our recent study!
Tissue ultrastructure can be resolved with X-rays, which impacts not only how we can study neuronal circuits but soft tissues more generally.
Kudos to Ana Diaz, @adrianawanner.bsky.social, @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social and all authors.
What is psychosis and how can we treat it?
Crick group leader @kathaschmack.bsky.social explains how her lab is working to uncover new ways to treat psychosis by finding its biological roots.
youtu.be/EUb3_5ecatU
Method of the Year 2025: In his Comment, Moritz Helmstaedter looks into the future of connectomics and the feasibility of scaling up to larger brains.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Connectomics is Method of the Year 2025!!
@natmethods.nature.com
just released the news nature.com/articles/s41... In my perspective piece, I afford some predictions into the future and compare how we are doing vs. genomics www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Our Method of the Year 2025 is...drumroll please...EM-based connectomics!!
Our Editorial introduces our choice and highlights six Comments and other related content in this special issue. Please join us in celebrating EM-based connectomics! 🎉🧠🔬
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
And read the associated Research Briefing here:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
An optimized X-ray nanotomography method offers an attractive alternative to volume EM for connectomics. @crick.ac.uk @psich.bsky.social psich.bsky.social @adrianawanner.bsky.social @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social @ucl.ac.uk @uclnpp.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Researchers at the Crick, @psich.bsky.social and @esrf.fr have developed a new way to look deeper into brain cell connections by using a particle accelerator and a kind of resin borrowed from the aerospace industry.
www.crick.ac.uk/news/2025-11...
Scientists at the Swiss Light Source #SLS and @crick.ac.uk have succeeded in mapping a piece of brain tissue 🧠 in 3D at unprecedented resolution using X-rays – non-destructively. The breakthrough overcomes a long-standing technological barrier that had limited the use of X-rays for such studies.
01.12.2025 12:46 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0Happy to share the first paper from my journey at @psich.bsky.social towards X-ray connectomics, now out in @natmethods.nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
27.11.2025 10:21 — 👍 39 🔁 15 💬 1 📌 0
I was glad to receive a Science Achievement Award from @crick.ac.uk! Thanks!!
Cheers to all co-authors of our study showing that tissue ultrastructure can be resolved by X-rays.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
And congrats as well to all the other awardees - such a pleasure to be in this lot!
Do you have 2D-to-3D image registration challenges? Let me know about them here
forum.image.sc/t/toward-bet...
Big kudos to all authors of this broad collaborative approach.
And cheers to a bright future for hard X-ray nanoimaging of biological soft tissues.
@crick.ac.uk @psich.bsky.social @esrf.fr
Ana Diaz, @adrianawanner.bsky.social, @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
This milestone unfolds the capacity of X-rays for mapping tissue ultrastructure without having to slice, which can have an impact on how we find answers in systems neuroscience and in the study of biological tissues more broadly.
tinyurl.com/XRnanocrick
We brought together a set of solutions tackling sample preparation, imaging algorithms and data processing and analysis that ultimately allowed obtaining <40nm resolution on brain tissue using X-ray ptychographic tomography. We could detect dendrites, mitochondria, myelinated axons... and synapses.
27.11.2025 11:51 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
#paper!
X-rays can resolve #ultrastructure in tissues non-destructively.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Shoutout to key collaborators at @crick.ac.uk and @psich.bsky.social Ana Diaz, @adrianawanner.bsky.social and @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social, and to the whole team that made this possible.
Check these positions at @crick.ac.uk! It’s an outstanding opportunity to shape the way we can map neuronal circuits - and more broadly biological tissues.
15.11.2025 20:24 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Organised by
@andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social, @em-stp.bsky.social, @carlesbosch.bsky.social, @safekhan.bsky.social, @jkbrmn.bsky.social, @yuxinzhang.bsky.social & Anika Tailor
Register here:
tinyurl.com/crickxrays25
Join us *next Monday*!
#CrickXrays25
X-ray #nanoimaging of biological tissues
🇬🇧🌐 @crick.ac.uk & online
tinyurl.com/crickxrays25
Sponsored by @dectris.bsky.social, @webknossos.org and @biologists.bsky.social and backed by @brukercorporation.bsky.social and Histomography
#CrickXrays25 is organised by @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social, @em-stp.bsky.social, @carlesbosch.bsky.social, @safekhan.bsky.social, @jkbrmn.bsky.social & @yuxinzhang.bsky.social with the assistance of Anika Tailor.
Hard X-ray imaging of biological soft tissues.
tinyurl.com/crickxrays25
Join us!
With invited speakers from @esrf.fr, Northwestern U, ALBA, DESY-@embl.org, @psich.bsky.social, Argonne National Lab, @uni-goettingen.de, TU Denmark, @yaleschoolofmed.bsky.social, @crick.ac.uk, @ucl.ac.uk and from industry partners @dectris.bsky.social and @webknossos.org.
tinyurl.com/crickxrays25
#Nanoimaging symposium @crick.ac.uk!
At #CrickXrays25 we'll tackle:
💫synchrotron upgrades
📈current limits in throughput, volume, resolution
🧪sample preparation for X-ray PC imaging
🧠♥️applications in neuroscience and tissue life science
🗓️13th October 2025
🇬🇧🌐 London & online
tinyurl.com/crickxrays25
Kudos to all authors involved and thanks to all the institutions that have hosted and supported this research, including the #synchrotrons DESY and @esrf.fr.
@crick.ac.uk @embl.org @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social @uclnpp.bsky.social
#preprint:
We optimised the preparation of tissues for #X-ray phase contrast imaging.
Drying tissue samples (instead of embedding them) brings more signal in #X-ray phase contrast images.
The process largely preserves #ultrastructure.
@safekhan.bsky.social @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social
Wouldn't it be great if we could not only image large connectomic volumes but also completely reconstruct them? And if a whole mouse brain project didn't cost billions?
With the PATHFINDER preprint (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...), we preview a future where it doesn't have to.
And to the whole team: Alfred Laugros, Jayde Livingstone, Manuel Berning, Sina Tootoonian, Mihaly Kollo, Andrea Nathansen and @normanrz.com
@crick.ac.uk @uclnpp.bsky.social @esrf.fr @psich.bsky.social @zeiss-microscopy.bsky.social @webknossos.org @mpibrain.bsky.social
Enjoy the read!
Cheers to @tobiasackels.bsky.social, with whom we started the correlative workflow, to Anne Bonnin, key in the SXRT datasets that articulate the pipeline, and to Carsten Waltenberg for milling a targeted cylinder containing the neuronal circuits.
@psich.bsky.social @zeiss-microscopy.bsky.social
Big shoutout to all collaborators. Starting with @yuxinzhang.bsky.social, whose PhD evolved building this story. To @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social, core PI in this endeavour, and @apacureanu.bsky.social and Peter Cloetens for the expert insight on X-ray holotomography.
@crick.ac.uk @esrf.fr
