Syncroscopy New Application of Microscopy Software Helps Determine Man’s Evolutionary Progress with Greater Certainty

4 June 2003 Cambridge, UK: Syncroscopy, the world leader in unique digital imaging solutions for microscopy applications is pleased to announce Auto-Montage, its unique imaging system, is helping researchers to save time and obtain accurate images of difficult to see three-dimensional imaging levels of hard tissues.

Researchers at the US based Hard Tissue Research Unit (HTRU) used a unique portable confocal microscope (developed by HTRU) in conjunction with Auto-Montage to capture and analyse varying three-dimensional imaging levels of irregular bone and tooth surfaces. The resulting Montage images are allowing them to produce accurate images of rare early hominid skeletons (some of which are several millions of years old), a task they have previously been unable to perform.

Professor Timothy Bromage, Professor of Anthropology at HTRU commented: “These unique skeletons are millions of years old and we are not allowed to section them to look at their internal histology. Auto-Montage is extremely helpful here because we use it on skeletal elements, which have been broken during fossilisation to capture images of both the irregular surface of the fracture as well as the histology deep to the surface. The resulting Montage image helps us understand what is happening at various three-dimensional imaging levels of the bone.”

“With the software we can generate two important views of the specimen; One, we can produce a three-dimensional image of the irregular surface; Two, we can image the histology within this complex surface and collapse the Z heights into a two-dimensional plane to generate one single field of view. Producing such accurate images of these hard tissues makes it easier for us to chart man’s evolutionary progress with greater certainty,” continued Professor Bromage.

Bob Town, Syncroscopy’s General Sales Manager added: ” We are delighted to see Auto-Montage being applied to solving important yet unanswered evolutionary questions at such a prestigious imaging facility. Their work shows Auto-Montage can quickly and conveniently produce more true to life two-dimensional images of difficult to image three-dimensional specimens, which makes it an essential tool for microscopists demanding the same from their research.”

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Professor Timothy G. Bromage, Department of Anthropology, Hunter College, CUNY, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10021, USA.

Note to Editors

About Syncroscopy

Syncroscopy is a world-leading developer and supplier of innovative digital imaging solutions for optical microscopy applications. Syncroscopy's innovative brands include Auto-Montage for extended depth of focus three-dimensional imaging, Montage Explorer for the creation of the highest resolution, perfectly focused images ever seen and the SyncroCOOL camera range for cooled colour image capture. Syncroscopy's systems are used by more than 2,000 organisations internationally and include many of the world's major research institutes.

Syncroscopy, founded in 1998 is a division of the Synoptics Group based in Cambridge, UK. The Group’s other divisions, Syngene and Synbiosis, specialise in digital imaging solutions for molecular biology and microbial applications respectively. Synoptics currently employs 55 people in its UK and subsidiary operation in Frederick, USA. The Group has profitable revenue of almost $10 million and continues to grow rapidly.

Funded largely by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation, the HTRU (Hard Tissue Research Unit) is currently part of New York-based Hunter College. HTRU is a unique hard tissue technology development laboratory, providing a multi-disciplinary research environment for research on the biology of the living, historical, and fossil human skeletal tissues, as well as on the ecology and evolutionary biology of living and fossil primates and other selected vertebrates. The HTRU plans to move to the New York University College of Dentistry by the end of 2003, wherein its mission will broaden to include important researches in dentistry and biomedicine.