EMU: acquisition of high-contrast computed micro-tomography equipment for digital recovery and qualification of zoological collections in the state of São Paulo

• Grant number: 22/11538-0
• Support Opportunities: Research Infrastructure Program - Collections
• Start date: June 01, 2023
• End date: May 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Morphology of Recent Groups
• Principal Investigator: Inácio de Loiola Meirelles Junqueira de Azevedo
• Grantee: Inácio de Loiola Meirelles Junqueira de Azevedo
• Host Institution: Instituto Butantan. Secretaria da Saúde (São Paulo - Estado). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Antonio Domingos Brescovit ; Carlos Alberto Gonçalves Silva Jared ; Célio Fernando Baptista Haddad ; Felipe Gobbi Grazziotin ; Julia Pinheiro Chagas da Cunha ; Luis Felipe de Toledo Ramos Pereira ; Marcio Roberto Costa Martins ; Miguel Trefaut Urbano Rodrigues ; Monica Valdyrce dos Anjos Lopes Ferreira
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/03605-5 - Technical training for micro-CT digital image processing, BP.TT

Abstract

Biological collections are responsible for documenting, preserving, and promoting knowledge about biodiversity. Such knowledge is decisive for the development of sciences and societies, especially in times of environmental or public health crises. The state of São Paulo has some of the main zoological collections in Brazil, but unfortunately, many of them have materials in a precarious state of conservation or damaged in tragic events. The management of these collections faces the constant dilemma of guaranteeing access or protecting the fragile material in their collections. However, in the last decade, micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) equipment has revolutionized biological studies by enabling the generation of high-quality and sharp internal and external 3D images while keeping the specimens intact. Digitizing deteriorated or weakened materials and making them available online would make more than a hundred years of information on biodiversity accessible to the scientific community. Our proposal aims to recover, qualify and modernize access to material from some zoological collections in the state of São Paulo through the acquisition of a unique micro-CT not yet available in the country, the Xradia 620 Versa - Zeiss. Such equipment uses a synchrotron X-ray source combined with a process of magnification by geometric X-ray amplification followed by optical magnification by lenses, allowing the detection of absorption contrast with optimized scintillators and detectability of phase contrast (refraction contrast). The combination of these techniques promotes, in addition to high resolution, an increased contrast between tissues of low or similar density, which is essential for the analysis of fragile specimens and the study of histological characteristics of soft tissues. In addition to digitalizing material from zoological collections, this type of high-contrast and high-resolution image acquisition has been exponentially used in clinical and experimental biology, which will benefit many research groups in the estate working in cell biology, pathology, immunoregulation, parasitology, among other fields. Finally, we aim to train the Butantan Institute as a focal point for the generation of high-contrast computed microtomography images, complementing the Institute's solid microscopy park, thus fostering areas of scientific investigation and public health in the state of São Paulo. (AU)