Virtual Slice Press Release

Press Release: March 27, 2001

The classroom microscope may go the way of the slide rule and the quill pen if the recent reaction of University of Iowa medical students to a new Internet product is a clue.

The product enables entire glass microscope slides to be digitized and viewed over the Internet or intranet sites. Contiguous microscopic images of a slide specimen are stitched together to create a single seamless image, or “virtual slide”. By accessing these virtual slides via a standard web viewer, this technology allows a computer to emulate the functions of a microscope and glass slide almost perfectly.

“Our innovative acquisition and image viewing system allows users to pan across a specimen and zoom in to explore any part at any magnification,” explained Jack R. Glaser, President of MicroBrightField (MBF), Inc. of Williston, Vermont, whose company has developed the software, named “Virtual Slice”.

“Older technologies allowed for digital images of one field of view to be stored. However, multiple fields of view were too cumbersome to be useful, taking up hundreds of megabytes,” said Glaser, in explaining the advantages of the new technology. “The Virtual Slice allows hundreds, even thousands, of merged fields to be stored on a central server, and streamed to the viewer over the Internet. In addition, users’ comments and questions can be linked to locations on the slide, making the virtual slide a truly interactive teaching tool,” Glaser added.

Medical students rated the “virtual microscope” and “virtual slides” equal to or superior to regular classroom microscopes and glass slides in terms of clarity of image, navigation, accessibility, and efficiency of learning, according to Dr. Fred R. Dee, Professor of Pathology at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.

Supported by a grant from the National Library of Medicine, Dee, along with educational designer Tim Leaven, and anatomy professor Dr. Paul Heidger, were the first to adapt and evaluate MBF’s virtual slides for use in courses. A study entitled, “Comparison of a Virtual Microscope Laboratory with a Regular Microscope Laboratory”, is published in the recent edition of the journal, Anatomical Record (New Anatomist) 265:10-14, 2003 .

“Working with virtual slides can be much more productive and stimulating than working with a student lab microscope,” said Glaser. “Students can work from the comfort of their own home and on their own schedule.”

With a local intranet, students can access digitized slides from any computer on campus, while the Internet allows students to access slides from anywhere in the world. Faculty can also prepare lecture presentations using virtual slides downloaded from the Internet or intranet.

“This technology has applications outside the classroom, including research collaborations, pathology resident education, continuing medical education, proficiency testing, and web-based publishing,” Dee said. “It has the potential to revolutionize the way we visualize and distribute microscopic slides and images.”

Some examples of the technology can be accessed using a PC and 800×600 or higher resolution monitor at:
our NeuroInformatica image site