BCREGMED and the Dynamic Brain Circuits in Health & Disease team is excited to offer a full day workshop to facilitate the use of tissue clearing and expansion techniques in the regenerative medicine lab.

November 7^th
9am-4pm

DMCBH Koerner Labs Conference Centre
First floor, UBC Hospital Koerner Pavilion
2211 Wesbrook Mall
Vancouver, BC Canada
V6T 2B5

Purpose
Biological specimens are intrinsically difficult to image.  Currently used tools and methods, which cut two-dimensional sections of tissue samples to provide insight into the cellular components, lack in their ability to reveal the systemic nature of tissues and organs which are inherently three-dimensional. On the other hand, imaging deep into intact tissues brings with it its own problems as a result of the obscuring effects of light scatter and the limitations of most commercial microscopes.

Techniques to eliminate this scatter and provide understanding into the true behavior of tissues and organs have been developed, however to our knowledge these techniques being under-utilized in research labs in BC due to their complexity and lack of appropriate equipment.  With the purchase of a new light sheet microscope for the Biomedical Research Centre at UBC, tissue clearing and expansion will be made possible however training is needed on the various protocols of expansion and clearing, 3D image analysis, and troubleshooting to make sure these techniques are implemented effectively.

Tentative format

• Joshua Vaughn (University of Washington): details expansion and staining protocols with examples of expanded samples (30 min)
• Jonathan Epp (University of Calgary): wide analysis approaches and open source clearing methods
   (30 min)
• Zeiss: Data acquisition methods (30 min)
• Zeiss: 3D image analysis (30 min)

LUNCH & COFFEE BREAK sponsored by Zeiss

Hands-on component: Attendees apply their knowledge and analyze cleared tissues using software and pre-acquired files provided by Zeiss (2-3 hrs)