Scientists wanted to be able to see what cells and diseases are doing inside our body on a cellular level, in real-time. A group of researchers developed a groundbreaking microscope to do this.

Researchers at the Dutch Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography (ARCNL) and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), developed an advanced microscope capable of super-resolution microscopy trough an ultra-thin fiber.

Up until now, it was generally the case that the higher the resolution of a microscope, the larger the device needed to be, making it virtually impossible to look inside the human body in real-time. Although some methods that enable researchers to look inside living animals already exist, their resolution is very limited, and it takes a long time to generate an acceptable image.

With the use of smart signal processing, the researchers are able to beat the theoretical limits of resolution and speed. With this newly developed compact setup, scientists are finally able to, for example, look inside the brain in real-time and high resolution, using an ultra-thin fiber. Because the method does not require any unique fluorescent labeling, it is promising for both medical uses and characterization of 3D structures in nano-lithography!