Mr Anton Nathanson

My PhD project involves using multibeam scanning electron microscopy (multiSEM) and confocal imaging for ultra-high resolution, geospatial connectome mapping of the human hip and brain, in both health and disease. This world-leading research supervised by Professor Erik Meijering, uses cutting edge multiSEM techniques developed in-house to explore and analyse the human connectome – the totality of all the cellular connections in three dimensional space – from nano to meso-scale and to publish “Google Maps”-style interactive maps that will be freely accessible on the web (a smaller scale proof-of-concept-type work is accessible at http://www.mechbio.org/ ). This PhD project is using these techniques to investigate the role of the human connectome (and its degeneration) and network communication in tissues as diverse as Alzheimer’s Disease in the brain, to osteoarthritis and avascular necrosis in the hip. This research is essential in order to pioneer our understanding of maintenance and degeneration of tissue function, in both health and disease, and to develop next generation diagnostics for early detection of degenerative conditions.