I13-2-Diamond Manchester Imaging
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Carlos
Navarrete-Leon
,
P. Stephen
Patrick
,
Adam
Doherty
,
Harry
Allan
,
Silvia
Cipiccia
,
Shashidhara
Marathe
,
Kaz
Wanelik
,
Michela
Esposito
,
Charlotte K.
Hagen
,
Alessandro
Olivo
,
Marco
Endrizzi
Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[30748]
Open Access
Abstract: Two-directional beam-tracking (2DBT) is a method for phase-contrast imaging and tomography that uses an intensity modulator to structure the X-ray beam into an array of independent circular beamlets that are resolved by a high-resolution detector. It features isotropic spatial resolution, provides two-dimensional phase sensitivity, and enables the three-dimensional reconstructions of the refractive index decrement, δ, and the attenuation coefficient, μ. In this work, the angular sensitivity and the spatial resolution of 2DBT images in a synchrotron-based implementation is reported. In its best configuration, angular sensitivities of ∼20 nrad and spatial resolution of at least 6.25 µm in phase-contrast images were obtained. Exemplar application to the three-dimensional imaging of soft tissue samples, including a mouse liver and a decellularized porcine dermis, is also demonstrated.
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Sep 2024
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I13-2-Diamond Manchester Imaging
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Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[28574]
Open Access
Abstract: Beam tracking and edge illumination are phase contrast imaging techniques that rely on amplitude modulated x-ray beams to generate sensitivity to refraction and scattering. While each technique has its advantage (“single shot” three-contrast imaging in beam tracking; the ability to work with relatively large pixels in edge illumination), they also share a common drawback, namely that the modulator shields parts of the sample and, thus, prevents those areas from contributing to the image (under-sampling). Sample stepping, by which frames are acquired with the sample in a different position relative to the modulator (sometimes referred to as “dithering”) can produce well-sampled images. However, in computed tomography (CT), stepping must be performed at each rotation angle, enforcing step-and-shoot acquisitions and leading to long scan times. To enable faster acquisitions, fly scan compatible scanning schemes based on “roto-translating” the sample in the modulated x-ray beam were recently developed. This article reviews these schemes and provides practical guidance for their implementation.
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May 2024
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I13-1-Coherence
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Mattia Francesco Maria
Gerli
,
Giuseppe
Cala
,
Max Arran
Beesley
,
Beatrice
Sina
,
Lucinda
Tullie
,
Kylin Yunyan
Sun
,
Francesco
Panariello
,
Federica
Michielin
,
Joseph R.
Davidson
,
Francesca Maria
Russo
,
Brendan C.
Jones
,
Dani Do Hyang
Lee
,
Savvas
Savvidis
,
Theodoros
Xenakis
,
Ian C.
Simcock
,
Anna A.
Straatman-Iwanowska
,
Robert A.
Hirst
,
Anna L.
David
,
Christopher
O’callaghan
,
Alessandro
Olivo
,
Simon
Eaton
,
Stavros P.
Loukogeorgakis
,
Davide
Cacchiarelli
,
Jan
Deprest
,
Vivian S. W.
Li
,
Giovanni Giuseppe
Giobbe
,
Paolo
De Coppi
Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[31437]
Open Access
Abstract: Isolation of tissue-specific fetal stem cells and derivation of primary organoids is limited to samples obtained from termination of pregnancies, hampering prenatal investigation of fetal development and congenital diseases. Therefore, new patient-specific in vitro models are needed. To this aim, isolation and expansion of fetal stem cells during pregnancy, without the need for tissue samples or reprogramming, would be advantageous. Amniotic fluid (AF) is a source of cells from multiple developing organs. Using single-cell analysis, we characterized the cellular identities present in human AF. We identified and isolated viable epithelial stem/progenitor cells of fetal gastrointestinal, renal and pulmonary origin. Upon culture, these cells formed clonal epithelial organoids, manifesting small intestine, kidney tubule and lung identity. AF organoids exhibit transcriptomic, protein expression and functional features of their tissue of origin. With relevance for prenatal disease modeling, we derived lung organoids from AF and tracheal fluid cells of congenital diaphragmatic hernia fetuses, recapitulating some features of the disease. AF organoids are derived in a timeline compatible with prenatal intervention, potentially allowing investigation of therapeutic tools and regenerative medicine strategies personalized to the fetus at clinically relevant developmental stages.
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Mar 2024
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Adam
Doherty
,
Sylvain
Fourmaux
,
Alberto
Astolfo
,
Ralf F.
Ziesche
,
Jonathan
Wood
,
Oliver
Finlay
,
Wiebe
Stolpe
,
Darren
Batey
,
Ingo
Manke
,
François
Légaré
,
Matthieu
Boone
,
Dan
Symes
,
Zulfikar
Najmudin
,
Marco
Endrizzi
,
Alessandro
Olivo
,
Silvia
Cipiccia
Open Access
Abstract: Laser-plasma accelerators are compact linear accelerators based on the interaction of high-power lasers with plasma to form accelerating structures up to 1000 times smaller than standard radiofrequency cavities, and they come with an embedded X-ray source, namely betatron source, with unique properties: small source size and femtosecond pulse duration. A still unexplored possibility to exploit the betatron source comes from combining it with imaging methods able to encode multiple information like transmission and phase into a single-shot acquisition approach. In this work, we combine edge illumination-beam tracking (EI-BT) with a betatron X-ray source and present the demonstration of multimodal imaging (transmission, refraction, and scattering) with a compact light source down to the femtosecond timescale. The advantage of EI-BT is that it allows multimodal X-ray imaging technique, granting access to transmission, refraction and scattering signals from standard low-coherence laboratory X-ray sources in a single shot.
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Oct 2023
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I13-2-Diamond Manchester Imaging
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Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[31421]
Open Access
Abstract: Background: Microscopic imaging of cartilage is a key tool for the study and development of treatments for osteoarthritis. When cellular and sub-cellular resolution is required, histology remains the gold standard approach, albeit limited by the lack of volumetric information as well as by processing artifacts. Cartilage imaging with the sub-cellular resolution has only been demonstrated in the synchrotron environment. Purpose: To provide a proof-of-concept demonstration of the capability of a laboratory-based x-ray phase-contrast microscope to resolve sub-cellular features in a cartilage sample. Methods: This work is based on a laboratory-based x-ray microscope using intensity-modulation masks. The structured nature of the beam, resulting from the mask apertures, allows the retrieval of three contrast channels, namely, transmission, refraction and dark-field, with resolution depending only on the mask aperture width. An ex vivo equine cartilage sample was imaged with the x-ray microscope and results were validated with synchrotron tomography and histology. Results: Individual chondrocytes, that is, cells responsible for cartilage formation, could be detected with the laboratory-based microscope. The complementarity of the three retrieved contrast channels allowed the detection of sub-cellular features in the chondrocytes. Conclusions: We provide the first proof-of-concept of imaging cartilage tissue with sub-cellular resolution using a laboratory-based x-ray microscope.
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Jul 2023
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I13-1-Coherence
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Savvas N.
Savvides
,
Mattia F.
Gerli
,
Antonio
Citro
,
Lorenzo
Massimi
,
Charlotte K.
Hagen
,
Marco
Endrizzi
,
Alessia
Atzeni
,
Alberto
Astolfo
,
Michela
Esposito
,
Olumide K.
Ogunbiyi
,
Mark
Turmaine
,
Elizabeth S.
Smith
,
Silvia
Cipiccia
,
Christoph
Rau
,
Peng
Li
,
Roberto
Lutman
,
Giulia
Selmin
,
Natalie
Durkin
,
Soichi
Shibuya
,
Marianna
Scuglia
,
Marco
Pellegrini
,
Paolo
De Coppi
,
Alessandro
Olivo
Abstract: Tissue engineering (TE) holds promise for generating lab-grown patient specific organs which can provide: (1) effective treatment for conditions that require volumetric tissue transplantation and (2) new platforms for drug testing. Even though volumetric structural information is essential for confirming successful organ maturation, TE protocol designs are currently informed through destructive and 2D construct assessment tools (e.g. histology). X-ray phase-contrast computed-tomography (PC-CT) can generate non-destructive, high resolution, 3D density maps of organ architecture. In this work, PC-CT is used as new imaging tool for guiding two TE protocols currently at the in-vitro testing stage. The first (1) involves cell-repopulation of an oesophageal scaffold, with the aim of using the regenerated construct for treating long-gap oesophageal atresia, whilst for the second (2) a lung-derived scaffold is populated with islets for regenerating a pancreas, with the “repurposed” lung offering a platform for diabetes drug testing. By combing 3D images and quantitative information, we were able to perform comprehensive construct evaluation. Specifically, we assessed volumetrically: (1) the cell-distribution within the regenerated oesophagi and (2) islet integration with the vascular tree of the lung-derived scaffold. This new information was proven to be essential for establishing corresponding TE protocols and enabled their progression to more advanced scale-up models. We are confident that PC-CT will provide the novel insights necessary to further progress TE protocols, with the next step being in-vivo testing. Crucially, the non-destructive nature of PC-CT will allow in-vivo assessments of TE constructs following their implantation into animal hosts, to investigate their successful integration.
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Apr 2023
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I13-1-Coherence
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Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[28831]
Open Access
Abstract: Diffractive optical elements such as periodic gratings are fundamental devices in X-ray imaging – a technique that medical, material science, and security scans rely upon. Fabrication of such structures with high aspect ratios at the nanoscale creates opportunities to further advance such applications, especially in terms of relaxing X-ray source coherence requirements. This is because typical grating-based X-ray phase imaging techniques (e.g., Talbot self-imaging) require a coherence length of at least one grating period and ideally longer. In this paper, the fabrication challenges in achieving high-aspect ratio nanogratings filled with gold are addressed by a combination of laser interference and nanoimprint lithography, physical vapor deposition, metal assisted chemical etching (MACE), and electroplating. This relatively simple and cost-efficient approach is unlocked by an innovative post-MACE drying step with hexamethyldisilazane, which effectively minimizes the stiction of the nanostructures. The theoretical limits of the approach are discussed and, experimentally, X-ray nanogratings with aspect ratios >40 are demonstrated. Finally, their excellent diffractive abilities are shown when exposed to a hard (12.2 keV) monochromatic X-ray beam at a synchrotron facility, and thus potential applicability in phase-based X-ray imaging.
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Jan 2023
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I13-2-Diamond Manchester Imaging
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Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[28574]
Open Access
Abstract: We present a flyscan compatible acquisition scheme for three-modal X-Ray Computed Tomography (CT) with two-dimensional phase sensitivity. Our approach is demonstrated using a “beam tracking” setup, through which a sample’s attenuation, phase (refraction) and scattering properties can be measured from a single frame, providing three complementary contrast channels. Up to now, such setups required the sample to be stepped at each rotation angle to sample signals at an adequate rate, to prevent resolution losses, anisotropic resolution, and under-sampling artefacts. However, the need for stepping necessitated a step-and-shoot implementation, which is affected by motors’ overheads and increases the total scan time. By contrast, our proposed scheme, by which continuous horizontal and vertical translations of the sample are integrated with its rotation (leading to a “cycloidal-spiral” trajectory), is fully compatible with continuous scanning (flyscans). This leads to greatly reduced scan times while largely preserving image quality and isotropic resolution.
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Dec 2022
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I13-2-Diamond Manchester Imaging
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Lorenzo
Massimi
,
Samuel J.
Clark
,
Sebastian
Marussi
,
Adam
Doherty
,
Saurabh M.
Shah
,
Joachim
Schulz
,
Shashidhara
Marathe
,
Christoph
Rau
,
Marco
Endrizzi
,
Peter D.
Lee
,
Alessandro
Olivo
Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[23760]
Open Access
Abstract: In this work, the application of a time resolved multi-contrast beam tracking technique to the investigation of the melting and solidification process in metals is presented. The use of such a technique allows retrieval of three contrast channels, transmission, refraction and dark-field, with millisecond time resolution. We investigated different melting conditions to characterize, at a proof-of-concept level, the features visible in each of the contrast channels. We found that the phase contrast channel provides a superior visibility of the density variations, allowing the liquid metal pool to be clearly distinguished. Refraction and dark-field were found to highlight surface roughness formed during solidification. This work demonstrates that the availability of the additional contrast channels provided by multi-contrast X-ray imaging delivers additional information, also when imaging high atomic number specimens with a significant absorption.
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Jul 2022
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I13-2-Diamond Manchester Imaging
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Diamond Proposal Number(s):
[23760]
Abstract: We present a dynamic implementation of the beam-tracking x-ray imaging method providing absorption, phase, and ultrasmall angle scattering signals with microscopic resolution and high frame rate. We demonstrate the method’s ability to capture dynamic processes with 22-ms time resolution by investigating the melting of metals in laser additive manufacturing, which has so far been limited to single-modality synchrotron radiography. The simultaneous availability of three contrast channels enables earlier segmentation of droplets, tracking of powder dynamic, and estimation of unfused powder amounts, demonstrating that the method can provide additional information on melting processes.
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Nov 2021
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