Abstract
The cost of 3D printing has reduced dramatically over the last few years and is now within reach of many scientific laboratories. This work presents an example of how 3D printing can be applied to the development of custom laboratory equipment that is specifically adapted for use with the novel brain tissue clearing technique, CLARITY. A simple, freely available online software tool was used, along with consumer-grade equipment, to produce a brain slicing chamber and a combined antibody staining and imaging chamber. Using standard 3D printers we were able to produce research-grade parts in an iterative manner at a fraction of the cost of commercial equipment. 3D printing provides a reproducible, flexible, simple and cost-effective method for researchers to produce the equipment needed to quickly adopt new methods.
Highlights
As research questions in neuroscience, and biomedical science in general, become more complex, so too do the techniques involved
This work presents an example of how 3D printing can be applied to the development of custom laboratory equipment that is adapted for use with the novel brain tissue clearing technique, CLARITY
The aim of this study was to explore the use of freely-available software, along with inexpensive consumer grade fused deposition modelling (FDM) printers, to produce custom equipment required for a novel tissue clearing method: passive CLARITY (Chung et al, 2013; Tomer et al, 2014)
Summary
As research questions in neuroscience, and biomedical science in general, become more complex, so too do the techniques involved. Methodological advances appear more frequently, leading to a greater rush for research groups to utilise these within their field. Each novel method brings its own problems in the equipment that is required. A number of tissue-clearing methods have been recently developed (Chung et al, 2013; Hama et al, 2011; Ke et al, 2013; Kuwajima et al, 2013; Susaki et al, 2014), but the common factor amongst them is that the volumes of tissue involved are orders of magnitude greater than traditional histology, requiring custom laboratory equipment for both the handling and imaging of samples
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