A new adapter to traditional microscopes is expected to take light microscopy to a new level. Developed by a professor at Auburn University, the CytoViva allows resolutions below 100 nanometers and detection capability below 10 nanometers. The resolution of traditional microscopy is limited to only about 240 nanometers.
"What this really does is provide a very focused and a very directed beam of light to a very, very tiny target," explains Charles T. Ludwig, president and chief executive officer of Aetos Technologies Inc., a privately held technology development company in partnership with Auburn. The CytoViva "fills the gap," he says, between a conventional light microscope and an electron microscope.
Ludwig recalls when he first saw the device about two years ago: "We were absolutely amazed." A Russian biophysicist from a biotechnology institute in St. Petersburg, Dr. Vitaly Vodyanoy, invented the CytoViva and built the first crude but functioning model himself. The purpose of the tool was to see brain cancer cells as they were being killed by a process he was researching. Vodyanoy is now with Auburn.
"The power that we've found with CytoViva is that we can image things on a real-time basis while it's alive in that range of 10 to 100 nanometers," Ludwig says. "When we first tell somebody that, we get this eye roll and the comment, 'Oh sure you can.'" Well, the CytoViva can.
The device is an adapter that mounts in place of a microscope's condenser and is connected to a 24-watt metal halide light source. Ludwig explains that the adapter improves signal-to-noise ratio, thus improving contrast and clarity. Once invisible structures and organisms are visible in real time, without special sample preparation.
That sample preparation has always been the drawback of electron microscopy, which requires the freezing and staining of samples. "But that really doesn't tell you the dynamics of what's happening during a pharmacological exposure. It's kind of like looking at a raisin rather than a grape," Ludwig says. "We're able to pick up every photon which comes off an individual particle, whether it's a virus or a gold particle or a living cell or features within that cell." The cells show up brightly and the background is black.
With the CytoViva, researchers can watch subcellular processes and see engineered nano-materials such as carbon nano-tubes, gold particles and polymers. Scientists can observe interactions between live cells and tiny organisms such as bacteria, colloids and viruses. "We have been able to image every virus that has been brought to us," Ludwig says. While medical research is certainly a promising market, Ludwig adds that two-thirds of the market now appears to be in the nanotechnology and biotechnology fields.
Aetos contracted with a West Coast optical firm to build the CytoViva. The first prototype was ready in August 2004, and the device was unveiled at the annual meeting of the American Society of Cell Biology in December. Aetos received its first units for sale in March 2005; the CytoViva costs $17,500.
Ludwig describes Aetos as "a turnkey commercialization company that has licensed a body of technologies from Auburn. We provide the function of basically identifying the technologies that have highest value, going through the plan function, getting the financing, going out and designing and building the products, and then doing the marketing and sales to wrap up the revenue growth."
CytoViva is Aetos' first product. An aquaculture product — a hybrid catfish — will be its second. Nine other products have been screened and are ready to move forward, while nearly 40 others are under consideration.
