The Desktop Electron Microscope Initiative (DEMI) – Finalists for the 25th Annual NSW Health Awards 2023!

We would like to congratulate our colleagues and friends at the Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research, Liverpool NSW, and wish them well for the awards night to be held on Tuesday- 24 October 2023. The NSW Health Awards recognise personalised, sustainable, and digitally enabled health programs that deliver outcomes that matter most to patients and invest in the wellness of the NSW community.

Electron microscopy plays a major role in diagnosing disease, however high costs can limit its access. NSW Health Pathology’s Liverpool lab assessed electron microscopy platforms, such as the Phenom Pharos, to see if they could be modified to increase automation and be more cost-effective. The team worked with ATA Scientific and Thermo Fisher Scientific International for this project. Together, they reimagined a low-cost benchtop electron microscope, used for engineering and geology, for use in pathology. It will be used in NSW Health Pathology Anatomical laboratories and has global commercial potential.

This new class of electron microscopy can resolve single proteins, viruses and key cellular changes in renal disease, cancer and rare diseases. This offers wide-ranging health and economic benefits for patients and the NSW Health system.

In a world-first trial, a prototype was produced and assessed by NSW Health Pathology’s Liverpool lab. Results were presented at the 20th International Microscopy Congress in September. A second prototype is being developed by Thermo Fisher in the UK to provide enhancements essential to replace existing EM technology currently in use.

For more infomation on how the desktop Phenom Pharos FEG-SEM with low kV STEM imaging may be used for fine high resolution ultrastructural characterisation of soft tissues for cell biology and pathology, view application note here.

Low-kV STEM imaging of soft tissues for cell biology and pathology

Scanning electron microscopy as a new tool for diagnostic pathology and cell biology – ScienceDirect