Examples of how our CRO services and technology address clinically relevant questions in partnership with leading research organizations. Decoding podocyte injury: STED microscopy and spatial transcriptomics Key Finding STED microscopy detects early podocyte foot process effacement in biopsies with completely normal H&E morphology — invisible to conventional light microscopy, but critical for early diagnosis and drug target identification. Three distinct effacement patterns classified: normal, diffuse global, and segmental only resolvable at nanoscale Diffuse global effacement associated with early, primary podocyte injury — detectable before any structural changes appear in standard pathology Molecular signature of effacement identified: downregulation of nephrin (NPHS1) and slit diaphragm maintenance pathways Integrative STED + spatial transcriptomics approach enables simultaneous structural and molecular characterization from routine biopsy material Figure: Representative stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy images of the glomerular filtration slit in kidney biopsies from healthy living donors (healthy), idiopathic nephrotic syndrome (INS), and chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. The glomerular filtration slit was visualized by nephrin (NPHS1) immunostaining and STED microscopy and subjected to expert histopathology assessment. Glomeruli were classified by appearance of their filtration slits into normal morphology (blue), diffuse global (pink) or segmental (yellow) podocyte effacement. The filtration slit STED and H&E morphology were summarized by diagnosis groups in an alluvial plot, highlighting the association of diffuse global podocyte effacement with normal H&E morphology and INS. Mitochondrial diagnostics in Leigh sydrome Key Finding STED microscopy served as the functional efficacy readout in a 5,632-compound drug repurposing screen identifying sildenafil as a candidate treatment for Leigh syndrome, validated from iPSC models through to six patients with confirmed clinical improvement. Specialized mito probes for cristae imaging, abberior dyes optimized for highest STED performance Conventional confocal microscopy cannot distinguish disease cases — STED makes the difference AI classification of uniform vs. laterally enriched Mic60 distribution patterns More than 4,000 STED images per condition for statistically robust conclusions
