On 9 January 2020, two students of the PhD Programme in Medical Sciences, Qingzi Guo and Ellie Mitsi, visited the µ-VIS X-ray Imaging Centre at the University of Southampton [1] and the Biomedical Imaging Unit at Southampton General Hospital [2]. Dr Philipp Schneider (Director (Academic) and Academic Theme Leader µ-VIS and an Associate Professor in Biomedical Imaging), Dr Peter Lackie (Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and the Academic Lead of the Biomedical Imaging Unit), Dr Orestis Katsamenis (Senior Research Fellow/Beamline Scientist at μ-VIS) and Dr Phil Basford  (Senior Research Fellow in the Computational Engineering and Design group) welcomed the students and explained their current research focus and the principles of  the 3D X-ray Histology technique they have been developing in Southampton since 2014 [3]. Facilities run by the team include the state-of-the-art X-ray Micro-CT scanners that can reveal the internal structures of standard formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded soft tissue specimens in three-dimension (3D) without the need of additional staining or slicing/destruction of the tissues. The visit is part of a research collaboration currently being established for the students’ PhD research projects. The students are supervised by Dr Dimitrios Kanakis, Associate Professor in Pathology.

[1] www.muvis.org

[2] www.southampton.ac.uk/biu

[3] www.xrayhistology.org