Ultrarapid Deep 3D Histology

 

Ultrarapid Deep 3D Histology

 

Date: 26^th May, 2026 (Tuesday)

Time: 4 - 5 pm (HKT)

 

Venue: Lecture Theatre P3, Chong Yuet Ming Physics Building

 

Fudan University

 

Dr. Lixue Shi received her B.S. degree in Chemistry from Peking University in 2014. She completed her doctoral training at Columbia University under the mentorship of Prof. Wei Min in 2019, focusing on pushing the sensitivity of Raman spectroscopy. Lixue stayed in Min lab as a postdoctoral fellow and shifted the gear to develop high-content vibrational imaging tools to interrogate biological complexity. Lixue joined the faculty at Fudan University in the end of 2022. Her research focuses on the development and application of vibrational spectroscopy-based bioimaging technologies. She has made contributions in areas such as metabolic imaging and profiling, highly-multiplexed Raman imaging, single-molecule Raman imaging, and environmental sensing. Lixue’s research has been recognized by the 2022 MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 Asia Pacific, and Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad, among others.

 

Three-dimensional (3D) histology provides volumetric insights of tissue microarchitectures across entire specimens, holding great promise for more accurate prognostication. However, existing methods are too slow for intraoperative consultations. In this talk, I will present ULTRA (Ultrarapid cleared stimulated Raman with AI), a label-free, stain-free, fixation-free, and section-free platform that leverages the chemical specificity of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy for rapid 3D histological analysis. Through the synergistic development of a novel one-step tissue clearing protocol and emergent unsupervised learning algorithms, ULTRA delivers high-resolution, FFPE-grade deep 3D virtual histology within 20-30 minutes, covering orders-of-magnitude more tissue than slide-based methods. In human surgical glioma samples, ULTRA accurately resolves key histological features in 3D and delineates 3D tumor infiltration margins at single-cell resolution. By reducing the timescale of nondestructive 3D pathology from days or hours to minutes, ULTRA represents a transformative advance in improving diagnostic confidence and surgical precision in the operating room.