Multiscale Geonavigational Approach to Understand Organ Biosystems and their Cellular Inhabitants in Health and Disease

Recent cutting edge advances have led to the development of multibeam electron microscopy (mSEM), a method enabling nanometer resolution electron microscopy imaging of macroscopic samples in feasible time frames [1]. In an industry-university-clinical collaboration, we have recently created the first geonavigational map of the human hip, enabling understanding of organ scale human health in context of cellular inhabitants. Through implementation of geonavigational techniques including Google Maps API and dropping of pins to mark relevant landmarks including viable and pyknotic cells, as well as blood vessels, current hypotheses can be tested within each dataset (single patient) and between patients, allowing an unprecedented systems biology approach to understand human organ and ecosystem health and disease.[2] Using this approach in the first fully mapped dataset, we showed that subtle but statistically significant differences are observable between viable and dying osteocytes and their nearest neighboring cell. In contrast, no significant differences were observed in mean path lengths of viable and dying cells to the nearest blood supply. These data implicate cellular connectivity as a measure of cell health. This study may pave the way for development of automated diagnostic measures for assessment of emergent pathologies and disease diagnosis, from cell to organ length scales.