Principal Investigator: Rene Haegerling, PhD

Institution: St George's University of London

LF Funding History: 2017 Proof-of-Concept Award

Hypothesis: We hypothesize that light-sheet microscopy based imaging techniques will allow visualization of the 3D microanatomy of lipedematous tissue and could therefore elucidate vascular alteration in patient tissues. A more detailed knowledge about the vascular architecture will improve our understanding of the disease and could results in a diagnostic test for lipedema.

Current LF Collaborations:

• Pia Ostergaard, St. George’s University of London

• Epa Gousopoulos, Universitätsmedizin Göttingen

Collaborative Opportunities: As our study will improve phenotyping of lipedema patients, we are looking for collaborative opportunities with other LF-funded investigators in the context of phenotyping and identification of vascular alteration in lipedema patients.

Project: VIPAR - A Novel Potential Diagnostic Approach for 3D Histopathology of Lipedematous Skin Based on Light-sheet Imaging and Automated Data Extraction

As our knowledge about the 3D microanatomy in lipedema is limited due to the lack of suitable imaging techniques, the aim of our project is to develop a new imaging approach allowing a more detailed phenotyping of lipedema patients and identification of potential vascular alteration in patients compared to healthy controls.

We established a 3D histopathological technique called VIPAR (volume information-based histopathological analysis by 3D reconstruction and data extraction) for diagnosis of lymphedema, which has elucidated the underlying pathology. In the course of this project, we will adapt our light-sheet imaging approach to lipedematous tissue to understand the 3D
microanatomy in more detail. Analysis of a significant number of patient tissues of different lipedema stages will allow identification of new patient cohorts as well as a more detailed staging. Therefore, this approach has the potential to become a new diagnostic test for lipedema.