60Nd and Axion BioSystems Integrate Mechanical Simulation with Live Incubator Imaging

60Nd is now Axion BioSystems' preferred partner for mechanobiology, following the successful integration of the 60Nd NeoMag platform with the Axion Lux3 incubator microscope.

Mechanical actuation and live imaging have been mutually exclusive in practice. An actuator either requires manual intervention or competes for the optical path of the microscope, so the sample has to leave the incubator to be imaged. Most in vitro assays therefore either leave mechanics out or read a single static endpoint.

Working with Axion BioSystems over the past months, the 60Nd NeoMag has been integrated with the Axion Lux3, a fully incubator-compatible inverted microscope, so that the two instruments operate as a single unit on one incubator shelf. Controlled, non-invasive deformation is applied to cells and tissue in culture while the Lux3 acquires continuously and in focus, over multi-day experiments and without removing the sample.

A targeted hardware redesign keeps the highest seedable surface inside the working distance of the microscope at the most demanding focal plane, which extends the approach to 2D monolayers and to 3D scaffolds cultured within the MagFlex consumable.

Out of this work, 60Nd has been officially named Axion BioSystems' preferred partner for mechanobiology.

The joint application note, Seeing the force, will be published on 29 September and includes a human fibroblast wound-healing assay run and imaged end-to-end under mechanical load. A joint webinar with Axion follows in October.