Why 3D Tissue Imaging?
Because Biology Isn’t Flat.
Explore intact tissue in full spatial context with 3D tissue imaging and digital pathology. No sectioning, no registration artifacts, and no missing regions of interest. Alpenglow’s Aurora™ 3D Spatial Biology Solution converts whole tissue into quantitative 3D datasets with spatial profiling and AI-powered analysis, so you can make faster, more confident decisions from every sample.
Essential use cases where 3D histology is required
Convoluted 3D tissue structures and vasculature
2D slices distort complex structures such as vasculature, neurons, and glands, which leads to inaccurate length, branching, and volume measurements.
Alpenglow Biosciences quantifies full 3D morphology using whole-tissue imaging, measuring accurate volume, path length, branching angles, and even fractal complexity in ways that 2D slides cannot approximate.
Key Applications:
Track neuronal architecture in the enteric and peripheral nervous systems
Map vascular remodeling in dementia, tumors, ischemia, and placental development
Quantify fibrotic changes in liver, kidney, and lung disease with volumetric accuracy
Complex 3D cellular distributions in the tissue microenvironment
Traditional 2D histology erases microenvironmental context. Thin sections reveal local detail but fragment the 3D spatial organization of cells across the whole tissue.
Alpenglow Biosciences captures full 3D cellular distributions across the tumor microenvironment, fibrotic tissue, and immune infiltrates. 3D histology and spatial profiling reveal patterns that 2D slices systematically miss.
Key Applications:
Analyze immune-tumor interactions across the complete tumor microenvironment
Visualize amyloid and tau deposits in 3D space across brain regions
Quantify immune cell types, clustering, and co localization in inflamed tissue
Rare cell and rare event detection in 3D volumes
Rare cells and drug targets are easy to miss in a handful of thin sections, especially for large specimens.
Alpenglow’s slide-free 3D imaging surveys entire tissue volumes at high resolution, uncovering rare events wherever they occur in the sample.
Key Applications:
Detect genetically labeled rare cells across whole organs or large tissue blocks
Assess drug localization in target and off-target regions with full volume context
Track stem and progenitor cells in development or regeneration models
Identify spatially distinct subclones in patient-derived xenografts
How 3D Imaging Advances Discovery, Validation, and Diagnostics
Mechanism of Action in Intact Tissue
Drugs work in 3D tissue, not 2D slides.
3D tissue imaging with the Aurora ™ Platform shows how therapies engage their targets across the whole tissue architecture. You can see immune cell activation, tissue remodeling, and structural response within intact tumors, organs, and skin, rather than inferring from disconnected sections.
Applications:
Spatial tracking of immune activation in solid tumors
Neuronal remodeling in neuroinflammatory disease
Fibrosis progression and regression in lung, liver, kidney
Predictive spatial biomarkers and AI powered analysis
Beyond visualization, the value of 3D data lies in the spatial metrics it enables.
Alpenglow’s 3Dai™ image analysis platform extracts quantitative patterns from large 3D volumes, turning tissue into AI-ready datasets.
Examples of spatial features:
Distances between immune cells and tumor nests or TLS-like structures
Vessel density and branching changes that precede standard efficacy markers
Off-target accumulation of drug signal in neural or sensitive tissue
Target engagement, biodistribution, and safety
In preclinical studies, partial slices rarely give the complete picture of where a drug actually goes and which structures it contacts.
Whole-tissue, high-resolution 3D imaging maps biodistribution across blood vessels, nerves, immune zones, and fibrotic regions in a single dataset.
You see the full spatial spread of your therapeutic, which supports:
Confirmation of on-target engagement in the intended region
Detection of off-target localization and early signs of toxicity
Validation of delivery strategies before clinical trials begin
From 2D slides to 3D ground truth tissue data
Traditional 2D histology flattens complex tissue, which removes essential spatial context for disease biology and drug response.
3D tissue imaging and spatial biology capture the full architecture of the sample in a single volumetric dataset. You can explore, annotate, and quantify disease patterns, cellular interactions, and immune responses at tissue scale.
The Aurora™ 3D Spatial Biology Solution unifies three modules so you can work with ground truth 3D data.
3Di™ HOTLS microscope. Hybrid open top light sheet system for intact tissue imaging and multi-scale 3D histology.
3Dm™ data management. Automated data handling and processing workflows that keep large 3D volumes organized and accessible.
3Dai™ image analysis. AI-powered analysis and spatial statistics that extract quantitative insight from gigabyte to terabyte-scale datasets.
You can access Aurora™ as a complete end-to-end platform, or you can begin with 3D histology imaging services to generate 3D tissue data and AI-ready volumes without installing new hardware.