From the March 1999 Scientific American Magazine | 0 comments

Visualizing Human Embryos ( Preview )

A technique called magnetic resonance microscopy is revealing the secrets of early human development

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March
1999 Issue
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A striking new biological landscape awaits me each morning when I arrive at the Center for In Vivo Microscopy at Duke University Medical Center. It features interior views of preserved human embryos as revealed by a technology known as magnetic resonance microscopy (MRM). These three-dimensional images are both exquisite and enlightening. Such "virtual" embryos allow me to take computer-simulated voyages through all the systems of the human body at its earliest stages. Using the images, I can also generate animations of embryonic development that have been impossible until now [see animations].

Such detailed information is increasingly in demand as biologists attempt to understand the steps in both normal and abnormal development as well as the factors that dictate each process. Most existing knowledge comes from studying two-

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