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Scientists Discover Way to Send Information into Black Holes Without Using Energy

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This New Lens Breakthrough Lets Doctors See Inside the Human Body in Stunning 3D Detail

A team of researchers led by Raju Tomer, professor of biological sciences at Columbia University, has developed a groundbreaking microscope and lens design that could dramatically improve how scientists view biological tissues in three dimensions. Published in Nature Biotechnology, this innovation promises to make high-resolution 3D imaging faster, cheaper, and far more accessible than current systems.

Modern biology and medical research increasingly rely on detailed 3D images of intact tissues such as brains, tumors, and organ samples. These images help scientists understand how the brain is wired, how diseases develop, and even how artificial intelligence can be trained to detect medical conditions. However, one major challenge has slowed progress: the limitations of microscope lenses.

The Problem with Current Microscopy

Traditional microscopy systems force researchers to make difficult compromises.

On one hand, oil-immersion lenses are considered the gold standard for image clarity. These lenses work by placing a drop of oil between the lens and the sample, allowing extremely sharp imaging. However, they come with serious drawbacks. They are expensive, require careful sample preparation, and can only image a few millimeters deep into tissue.

On the other hand, air-based lenses are much cheaper and can image deeper into large tissue samples—sometimes several centimeters. But they struggle to maintain clarity, especially when tissues are chemically treated to become transparent for 3D imaging. This often results in blurry or low-resolution images.

For decades, scientists have had to choose between high resolution and deep imaging, but never both at the same time.

A New Solution: HySIL Technology

The Columbia research team has introduced a new approach called HySIL (Hybrid Solid–Liquid Optics) that solves this long-standing problem.

Instead of relying only on a traditional lens system, HySIL combines:

  • A simple curved solid lens

  • A carefully designed immersion liquid

Together, these components act as a single unified optical system. This design allows low-cost air lenses to produce high-resolution images across large, centimeter-scale tissue samples, without requiring special hardware or complex preparation changes.

In simple terms, HySIL removes the trade-off between depth and clarity, something that has limited biological imaging for decades.

SCOPE and Super-SCOPE: Bringing the Design to Life

To demonstrate the power of this new optical system, the researchers developed two practical devices.

The first is called SCOPE, a modular add-on that can be attached directly to existing light-sheet microscopes. This means laboratories do not need to replace their entire imaging systems—they can simply upgrade them.

The second is an advanced version called Super-SCOPE, which delivers even higher resolution and serves as a proof-of-concept for future improvements.

Professor Tomer explained the importance of the innovation, saying the team has effectively broken a long-standing barrier in microscopy by making the immersion liquid an active optical component, rather than just a passive medium.

He emphasized that this approach allows laboratories to achieve performance levels previously limited to expensive, specialized systems, but now at a fraction of the cost.

Compatibility with Existing Technologies

One of the most powerful aspects of HySIL is its flexibility. It is not limited to one type of microscope.

The system can be integrated into:

  • Light-sheet microscopes

  • Confocal microscopes

  • Two-photon imaging systems

  • Other 3D imaging technologies

This means researchers across many scientific fields can adopt the technology without redesigning their entire workflow.

The team also integrated HySIL into a compact projector-based light-sheet microscope developed earlier by Tomer’s group in 2024. This system is now commercially available under the name SLICE, showing that the technology is already moving beyond the lab and into real-world use.

Real-World Testing Across Biology and Medicine

To test the effectiveness of the system, researchers collaborated with multiple institutions and applied it to a wide range of biological samples.

Using pLSM-SCOPE, they successfully imaged:

  • Whole mouse brains

  • Salamander brains

  • Cavefish brains

  • Lab-grown human brain organoids

  • Human cancer biopsy samples

These experiments demonstrated that HySIL is not limited to one type of tissue or organism. Instead, it works across diverse biological systems, making it highly valuable for neuroscience, developmental biology, and cancer research.

Researchers were able to map neural connections, study brain development, and analyze tumor structures in three dimensions with much greater clarity than before.

Why This Matters for Medicine and AI

Traditionally, pathology has relied on examining thin slices of tissue placed on glass slides. While this method has been effective for decades, it only provides a two-dimensional view of complex biological structures.

However, diseases such as cancer often involve changes that are better understood in three dimensions, where the full structure of tissues can be seen.

Hanina Hibshoosh, professor of pathology and cell biology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, highlighted this shift. She explained that 3D imaging allows scientists to observe the complete architecture of tissues rather than limited cross-sections.

This improvement is especially important as artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more involved in medical diagnosis. AI systems require large, detailed datasets to learn effectively. High-quality 3D imaging could provide exactly that.

By making large-scale 3D imaging more affordable and accessible, HySIL could help train future AI systems to:

  • Detect diseases earlier

  • Improve diagnostic accuracy

  • Predict patient outcomes more effectively

Accessibility and Global Impact

A major goal of this technology is accessibility. According to the researchers and their industry partner MBF Bioscience, the system is designed so that even laboratories without specialized optical expertise can use it in daily research.

This is particularly important for low-resource settings, where advanced imaging systems are often too expensive or complex to maintain. HySIL-based microscopes could help bring high-quality biomedical imaging to teaching labs, hospitals, and research centers worldwide.

Collaboration and Future Development

The project involved collaboration across neuroscience, developmental biology, pathology, and industry partners. Scientists from Columbia University and MBF Bioscience contributed to the development and testing of the system.

Columbia University has also filed patent applications related to this technology, highlighting its potential commercial and clinical value.

Researchers believe this is only the beginning. As imaging systems become more scalable and easier to use, the amount of biological data available for analysis will grow rapidly, potentially transforming how diseases are studied and treated.

Conclusion

The development of HySIL represents a major step forward in microscopy technology. By combining simple optical components in a new way, researchers have created a system that breaks the long-standing trade-off between image quality and imaging depth.

This innovation could reshape fields ranging from neuroscience to cancer pathology, while also supporting the development of advanced AI tools in medicine.

Most importantly, it brings high-quality 3D imaging closer to everyday use in laboratories around the world, making cutting-edge science more accessible than ever before.

Reference: Gong, C., Affatato, P., Fay, M. et al. Hybrid solid−liquid optics enable scalable, high-resolution light-sheet microscopy across diverse immersion media. Nat Biotechnol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-026-03172-7

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