Aurelia Song

This was a level of rigor I'd never observed before, certainly far beyond the peer review for the cryobiology paper.

This is something I admire about Ken, and I was grateful for it here.

Preservation is worth being rigorous about.

The BPF prepared images using high-resolution focused ion beam milling and scanning electron microscopy, FIBSEM.

This technology produces resolutions of up to 4 nanometers.

Ken scan the prize submissions at 8 nanometers and 16 nanometers isotropic resolution.

Together with the 3D nature of the images, this is sufficient to examine a brain sample and determine whether the synapses, typically about 100 nanometers wide, are traceable.

Of course, imaging a whole brain is well beyond our current capabilities.

Ken compensated for this by analysing many samples, randomly chosen from different regions of the brains.

The BPF released all of the images and the original 3D data files, and they're still available today.

I've included the pig brains below.

Click through on the images to see YouTube videos showing the 3D imaging in full.

Each sample is from a brain that was preserved, vitrified, and rewarmed.

Ken Hayworth was joined on the BPF's judging panel by Sebastian Sung, a Princeton MIT neuroscientist, author of the book I Am My Connectome, and a major contributor to the Flywire project.

Together, they reviewed the 3D images, judged their quality, and traced neurons through the image stacks.

In the end, they agreed that I had won the prize.

Relevant Links

Small mammal BPF prize-winning announcement.

Large mammal BPF prize-winning announcement.

Letter of support for aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation to be developed into a medical procedure.