Zooming in: particle physics and the future of medical imaging

Vaccine breakthroughs dominated the news during the Covid-19 pandemic. But they weren’t the only scientific innovations changing how we understood the virus. Across Europe, a team of pathologists, technologists and imaging researchers saw a gap: we needed better technology to see what was really happening inside the lungs of individuals who died after contracting the virus. So they built one. Hierarchical Phase Contract Tomography (HiP-CT) is a new kind of imaging that lets us scan whole organs in 3D, in astonishing detail. Alisha is joined by four of the researchers behind this innovative approach to find out how it came to life during a global crisis, what it has revealed about Covid-19’s impact on the body, and where it could take us next. 

When Science Finds a Way is brought to you by Wellcome, an independent global foundation that supports science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone. For more information and podcast transcripts visit wellcome.org/podcast