Multi-contrast tensor tomography on biological tissue

Biological structures are made of smaller building blocks whose specific arrangement defines their properties. Understanding the nano, micro and macrostructure is critical to understanding the tissue, however, imaging methods classically rely on isolating the tissue from its native environment to study its morphology. A different approach is using dark-field imaging and a multi-contrast strategy to study the contribution of the different components to the signal. We propose to use a high-energy small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering tensor tomography on a mouse limb. In this experiment, the direction of alignment and degree of orientation of the collagen fibrils and mineral platelets in the bone, collagen in tendons and ligaments, and keratin in nails and fur can be extracted in the 3D volume from their scattering/diffraction signal. We believe the experiment will pave the way for understanding tissue organization in a more complete and multi length scale manner.