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Mission

To advance the research of UTHSCSA and regional researchers interested in high-resolution 3D imaging.

 

Rationale

Micro-computed tomography is an x-ray imaging technique introduced to orthopaedics in the late 1980’s by Layton (Layton et al., 1988) and Feldkamp (Feldkamp et al., 1989).  Since then, this technology has advanced greatly, begining with systems that occupied entire rooms and were limited to 50 μm nominal resolutions to desktop systems (Rüegsegger et al., 1996) that can now acquire 1 micron and sub-micron data (Salmon, 2009).  With these data, it is possible to quantitatively and accurately analyze the 3D structure of bone and mineral (Fajardo et al., 2002).  This imaging method is now a standard analysis in studies of aging, disease, tissue engineering, and therapeutics as they pertain to bone and mineral.

 

 

 

Advantages of Micro-CT

  • Micro-CT allows for extremely high-resolution, non-destructive, 3D imaging.
  • No staining, sectioning, or sample preparation needed
  • Samples can be frozen or fixed
  • Since Micro-CT is non-destructive, other assays may be carried out after, thereby increasing the amount of data per sample
  • Data acquisition is a rapid process, allowing for a speedy return of samples