QUANTITATIVE IMAGING: MORPHOMETRY ANALYSIS OF RHESUS FETAL LUNG

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The general goal of this project is to introduce modern stereology methods to quantitative imaging projects at ONPRC. Using microscopy to obtain quantitative rather than descriptive information relies on the understanding and implementation of 3D geometry, statistics and sampling theory concepts, not commonly used in biological applications. We are collaborating with Dr. Dallas Hyde from the CNPRC, vice-president of the International Society for Stereology, to standardize protocols for the quantitative analysis of nonhuman primate lung morphometry. Based on Dr. Hyde's experience with standard measurements on adult lungs, we will develop protocols for processing, sampling, imaging and analyzing rhesus fetal lungs for projects currently in work at ONPRC. There are two general aims to this project: 1) to design protocols for processing, dividing and sampling the lung so that it can provide several investigators with complete representation of the whole organ, to be used for several methods. This will have a two-fold advantage: it will increase the efficiency or organ use and would ensure that each study has an adequate representation of the whole organ, and 2) to develop, test, implement and make available to interested ONPRC investigators protocols for measuring various structural parameters of interest in fetal lung. Stereology methods, sometimes tedious and mathematically intimidating will be presented as easy to follow, simple protocols. This initial experience obtained in lung will be then expanded to other organs of interest, starting with pancreas, ovaries and brain regions.