Tissue Imaging Cassette With Magnetic Coupling
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current confocal microscopy cassettes face challenges in maintaining a stable environment for live imaging, ensuring sample adhesion, and minimizing artifacts due to scratches or impurities.
Innovation Solution
A tissue imaging system featuring a cassette with a recess and window for tissue retention, a cavity for compression, and magnetic connection mechanisms to securely couple the cassette portions, along with a temperature-controlled plate and calibration components for optimal imaging conditions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If a cassette is used to retain tissue for confocal imaging, then high-resolution three-dimensional views can be obtained, but maintaining environmental stability (temperature, humidity, gas concentration) becomes challenging
Solution Approach 1:
The cassette is divided into two separate portions: a first cassette portion with a window for imaging and a second cassette portion with a cavity for tissue retention. This segmentation allows each portion to be optimized for its specific function while working together as a complete system.
Solution Approach 2:
The first cassette portion is inserted into the second cassette portion, creating a nested structure. The recess in the first portion fits within the cavity of the second portion, allowing compact integration while maintaining separate functional zones for environmental control and imaging.
2Measurement precision
If samples are immersed in medium for confocal imaging, then detailed views can be captured, but samples may not adhere well to the chamber surface or may deform
Solution Approach 1:
The second cassette portion features a cavity with specific local properties designed to hold tissue samples securely. The cavity provides a localized environment that maintains sample shape and position during imaging, preventing deformation while allowing immersion in imaging medium.
3Stability of the object's composition
If connection mechanisms are added to couple cassette portions, then environmental stability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Magnetic connection mechanisms are used to couple the first and second cassette portions together. The magnets provide secure attachment through magnetic attraction, replacing complex mechanical fastening systems with a simpler, more reliable magnetic coupling that maintains stability without adding significant complexity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The system provides stable and clear tissue imaging by maintaining environmental stability, ensuring proper tissue adhesion, and reducing artifacts, thereby enhancing the clarity and resolution of three-dimensional tissue views.
Implementation Method 1
The first connection mechanism and the second connection mechanism may each include a magnet
Implementation Method 2
the fixation magnet may be configured to magnetically couple the second cassette portion to the temperature-controlled plate
Implementation Method 3
the imaging device may include a temperature-controlled plate configured to maintain a temperature of the tissue in a range of approximately four to approximately six degrees Celsius
Data Source
AI summary
In accordance with an aspect of the present disclosure, a tissue imaging system includes a cassette configured to retain a tissue for imaging. The cassette includes a first cassette portion and a second cassette portion. The first cassette portion includes a recess formed in a central portion thereof, a window formed within the recess, and a first connection mechanism affixed thereto. The second cassette portion includes a cavity configured to compress a tissue therein and a second connection mechanism affixed thereto. An imaging device is configured to image the tissue through the window. Aligning the first connection mechanism and the second connection mechanism causes the first cassette portion to couple to the second cassette portion, compressing the tissue into the cavity for imaging.