A spin-out company from the renowned Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon has been established to commercialize the revolutionary Holotomography (HT) microscopy developed there by Professor YongKeun (Paul) Park. Called Tomocube, the new company sees Park serving as Chief Technology Officer while co-founder Kihyun (Kenny) Hong is CEO. They are joined as Chief Marketing Officer by Aubrey Lambert who spent almost 30 years with Carl Zeiss Microscopy in national and international positions.
Quantitative characterization of SH-SY5Y cells in the presence of MPP+. Red, Apoptotic cells; Green, Dividing cells; Blue, Normal cells.
Tomocube’s novel optical technology will be of interest to all life scientists, especially those using live cells or thin tissues in their work. HT microscopy is an optical technique analogous to X-ray computed tomography (CT), which exploits laser holography and computed tomography to quantitatively and non-invasively investigate biological cells and thin tissues, simply and rapidly. The technique reconstructs the 3D refractive index (RI) distributions of biological material to resolve highly detailed structural and chemical information, including dry mass, morphology, and dynamics of the cellular membrane.
Unlike traditional optical microscopes that only provide users with a two-dimensional view of their samples, Tomocube’s HT microscopy offers high-resolution 3D images of living cells. However, it does this without the need for labelling or extensive pre-preparation, in stark contrast with expensive atomic force, electron and laser-scanning light microscopes that have been used for detailed 3D studies until now.
According to Aubrey Lambert, “Tomocube is dedicated to delivering products that can enhance biological and medical research and the eventual treatment of diseases. Our platform enables researchers to capture and measure nanoscale, real-time, dynamic images of individual living cells without the need for sample preparation. It also permits the retrieval of unique cell properties, including cell volume, shapes of sub-cellular organelles, cytoplasmic density, surface area, and deformability. Our hope is that in allowing the easy and rapid 3D observation of biological cells, HT microscopy will help more scientists quantitatively study cell pathophysiology.”