'3D nanoSIMS' molecular imaging system touts nano resolutions

A new label-free molecular imaging system called the 3D nanoSIMS could provide superior drug research studies at intensely tiny spatial resolutions, announced the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Middlesex, United Kingdom, on Dec. 10.

The system, developed in part by the NPL and GlaxoSmithKline, is being tweaked to one day peer into even the inner workings of organelles inside cells, at approximately 50 nanometers.

"This powerful new instrument could help identify where drugs go at the cellular level, even within specific organelles, answering long-standing questions about whether drug concentrations are sufficiently high in the right places to have a therapeutic effect, or if the medicine is lodging within cellular components and causing toxicity," laboratory officials said in a statement.

Experts at the National Centre of Excellence in Mass Spectrometry Imaging are hoping to tackle the challenges of more conventional spectroscopy surrounding measurement of intracellular drug concentration.