Looking into the eye.
Techniques used to analyze images from "eyes in the sky' can be used to study real eyes, Duke University researchers in Durham, N.C., have found. Using an image analyzer originally developed to study data from earth-scanning satellites, they have devised a system capable of measuring blood vessel growth in the cornea, the normally clear covering over the front of the eye.
At upper right is a rat cornea into which blood vessels have grown as a result of a chemically induced injury. The lower image shows a computer-enhanced view of the cornea. At upper left, the damaged area is outlined; the image analyzer quantifies the amount of damage by determining the exact amount and degree of shading. The system, says Gordon Klintworth of Duke, can be used to study how vessels grow into a damaged cornea. In addition, it can measure the relative strengths of molecules called angiogenesis factors, which promote blood vessel formation, and anti-angiogenesis factors, which inhibit it.
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|Title Annotation:||image analyzer used to measure blood vessel growth in the cornea|
|Date:||May 17, 1986|
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