MD/PhD students’ work featured as Biomedical Picture of the Day

This zebrafish has been imaged using a new CT method, with colors assigned to structures based on their depth within the fish. The work resulted in a 2019 publication in eLife.

Work by MD/PhD student Yifu Ding was recently featured on the Biomedical Picture of the Day website.

A key part of the project was thanks to efforts from MD/PhD Medical Scientist Training Program students Yifu Ding and Spencer Katz. Ding is now a third-year medical student after successfully defending his thesis work from the Cheng Lab, which was published in the journal eLife in June as Computational 3D histological phenotyping of whole zebrafish by X-ray histotomography. Katz is a rising fourth-year graduate student in the Cheng lab, working on his thesis.

Through his work, Ding and his co-authors developed a new, 3D tissue imaging technique, called X-ray histotomography. The technique allows researchers to study the details of cells in a tissue sample without having to cut it into slices. It could lead to better diagnosis and treatment for a variety of diseases, including cancer.

A 3D video walkthrough of the work created by Dr. Cheng and Xuying Xin was featured as the Biomedical Picture of the Day on July 10.

If you're having trouble accessing this content, or would like it in another format, please email the Penn State College of Medicine web department.