An interdisciplinary team of researchers, including MBF Bioscience’s Dr. Susan Tappan and Maci Heal, have created a fully reconstructed, virtual 3D heart, digitally showcasing the heart's unique network of neurons for the first time. The investigators in this study--appearing May 26 in the journal iScience--created a comprehensive map of the intrinsic cardiac nervous system at a cellular scale using MBF Bioscience’s Tissue Mapper and TissueMaker software....
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MBF Bioscience Williston, VT – January 9, 2019 – MBF Bioscience is pleased to announce our participation in the Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions (SPARC) program. Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), this extensive research initiative is a vast collaborative effort, which aims to deepen the understanding of how the peripheral nervous system impacts internal organ function.
“We are honored to be working in collaboration with over 40 research teams in the United States and around the world who are making revolutionary discoveries about how the network of nerves located outside the brain and spinal cord affect organs such as the heart, stomach, and bladder, and what role these nerves play in diseases like hypertension and type II diabetes as well as gastrointestinal and inflammatory disorders,” says Jack Glaser, President of MBF Bioscience.
To facilitate this important research, MBF Bioscience will provide the collaborating research scientists with both software and support. Specifically, we will provide image segmentation tools developed to handle large and diverse amounts of scientific image data. Software applications such as Neurolucida 360®, Tissue Mapper™and Tissue Maker™will enable researchers to image and analyze nerves, tissues, and entire organs in 2D and 3D.
“Representing the innervation patterns accurately and robustly is an essential contribution to the generation of representative models that can be used for simulations. We are working with our partners at the University of Auckland, under the direction of Professor Peter Hunter, to create these models for each organ system that will be an enduring resource for scientists for years to come,” says Susan Tappan, Scientific Director at MBF Bioscience.
Researchers involved in the SPARC program are making important advances in health and medicine, which may lead to the development of new therapies for managing an array of illnesses and disorders. Some examples of research areas include subcutaneous nerve stimulation for arrhythmia control, sensory neuromodulation of the esophagus, and mapping of the neural circuitry of bone marrow. We are thrilled about this opportunity to work in partnership with such an impressive array of research teams on this ground-breaking project.
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