Connectomics — a technique that maps physical connections between neural cells — is expensive and inefficient. E11 Bio, a non-profit research group, is designing a tool to expedite progress.
The first breakthrough E11 Bio exploits is expansion microscopy. Microscopes have distinct resolution limits, meaning they cannot easily “see” exceptionally small things. Rather than boost the resolution of a microscope, expansion microscopy flips this idea on its head and instead expands the size of a sample.