By: IPP Bureau
Last updated : April 15, 2026 8:26 am
The 12-month alpha-testing phase will bring together ZEISS R&D, three academic collaborators, and three pharmaceutical industry partners
The Oxford-ZEISS Centre of Excellence in Biomedical Imaging and ZEISS have entered the proof-of-principle phase for a next-generation imaging platform that could significantly reshape early-stage drug discovery and translational medicine.
The proprietary Selective Plane Illumination Lattice Light Sheet Microscopy (SPI LLSM)technology is designed to systematically quantify how drugs behave within cells, organoids, and tissue biopsies, potentially transforming how new medicines are evaluated for safety and effectiveness.
The 12-month alpha-testing phase will bring together ZEISS R&D, three academic collaborators, and three pharmaceutical industry partners to validate the drug-profiling applications of SPI LLSM across increasingly complex biological models. By using ultrathin, non-diffracting light sheets, the platform enables high-resolution visualization of drug interactions in three-dimensional cell culture systems, overcoming key limitations of conventional imaging tools such as fluorescence correlation spectroscopy.
Originally developed at the Oxford-ZEISS Centre of Excellence and patented jointly through Oxford University Innovation, the novel microscopy method was created to address a longstanding need in drug discovery: fast, reliable, and quantitative measurement of drug diffusion and reaction dynamics in physiologically relevant biological systems. Its working principles have already been successfully demonstrated in solution assays and standard cell culture models widely used in preclinical research.
The next phase now expands the platform’s use into patient-derived tissue biopsies from the Oxford Tissue Banks and disease-relevant organoids, enabling researchers to observe drug movement and response patterns in far more clinically meaningful environments. This evolution could be particularly impactful in oncology, immunology, and autoimmune disease research, where organoid-based disease modelling is becoming central to therapeutic development.
Professor Marco Fritzsche, Scientific Director of the Oxford-ZEISS Centre of Excellence, said the innovation finally enables the observation of 3D reaction-diffusion dynamics in physiologically relevant organoids and tissue biopsies, opening the door to a new generation of precision drug-screening workflows. The development programme is expected to focus initially on cancer and autoimmune disease-specific organoids, with outputs from the proof-of-principle study guiding the commercialisation roadmap.
The Oxford-ZEISS Centre, launched in February 2024 through a strategic collaboration between the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology and the Institute of Developmental & Regenerative Medicine at the University of Oxford, was built as a future-ready imaging innovation hub supported by direct ZEISS R&D input. The partnership is designed to rapidly translate frontier microscopy advances into scalable biomedical research tools.
Professor Paul Riley, Director of the Institute of Developmental & Regenerative Medicine, described SPI LLSM as transformational for live imaging of cell behaviour in three-dimensional tissue and organ contexts, with broad implications across disease modelling and drug screening. Professor Michael Dustin, Director of Research at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, added that the approach could revolutionise the development of tumour-penetrating biologics and nanoparticle therapeutics.