A Microscope Upgrade That Could Change How Research Happens
By Michelle Fiscus, Senior VP & Chief Communications Officer
Rosario Porras-Aguilar, Associate Professor of Physics and Optical Science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte), has built her research around a fundamental challenge in microscopy — the chemical stains that make cells visible can also damage or destroy them. In labs around the world, researchers rely on dyes and chemical stains to make cells visible under a microscope. But those tools come at a cost. They can distort—or even kill—the very cells scientists are trying to understand. What remains is not a true picture of life at work, but an altered version of it.
“The information is there in the light passing through the sample,” Porras-Aguilar explains. “Most labs don’t even know it can be captured.”
That limitation doesn’t just slow research. It shapes it. Questions go unasked. Discoveries never happen because it affects what kinds of research are even possible. When you cannot observe cells in their natural state, certain experiments simply cannot be done.
At UNC Charlotte, Porras-Aguilar’s work is focused on changing that reality. Instead of building entirely new, expensive imaging systems, she’s developed a compact device that attaches to a standard microscope and transforms what it can do.
Think of it as an upgrade, not a replacement.
The device captures a four-dimensional view of biological samples — revealing depth, structure, and movement in real time — without the need for dyes or stains. That means scientists can observe living cells as they actually are, not as they’ve been chemically altered to appear.
“Label-free imaging becomes not just an alternative… it becomes the only viable path,” she says, particularly when studying pathogens that don’t respond to traditional staining methods.
But the innovation isn’t just about capability. It’s about access.
Today’s most advanced imaging systems can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and require specialized expertise to operate. That puts them out of reach for most labs — especially smaller academic institutions, startups, and rural clinical settings.
Porras-Aguilar knows that gap personally. Growing up in southern Mexico with limited access to technology shaped how she sees the problem.
“I have always been aware of what happens when capable people lack the right tools,” she says.
That perspective drives her work: not just to advance imaging, but to democratize it.
With support from NCInnovation, her team is now moving beyond proof of concept toward something much harder — turning a working idea into a product that can actually reach the people who need it.
This is where many university technologies stall.
The science works, but the path to market is uncertain, underfunded, and full of risk — what’s often called the “valley of death” in commercialization. Without intervention, even promising breakthroughs can sit on the shelf indefinitely.
NCInnovation exists to change that.
Through non-dilutive funding and commercialization support, the organization helps researchers like Porras-Aguilar move their work out of the lab and into real-world use — refining the design, validating performance across applications, and building the partnerships needed for manufacturing and distribution.
“The science works,” she says. “Now we can demonstrate that it works reliably, at scale, in the hands of users who are not optical scientists.”
If successful, the impact extends far beyond a single lab.
A teaching institution could give undergraduate students access to advanced imaging for the first time. A startup could accelerate drug development without investing in expensive equipment. A rural hospital could improve diagnostics using tools it already has — just upgraded.
And in North Carolina, where research strength is already a cornerstone of the economy, the ripple effects could include new companies, manufacturing opportunities, and broader participation in the innovation ecosystem.
“This isn’t just about who has the microscope,” she says. “It’s about who has the patients and the discoveries on the other side of it.”
For Porras-Aguilar, the motivation is both technical and deeply personal — but also, at its core, human.
“It is endlessly exciting,” she says. “Every challenge leads to more applications; every application sparks more ideas.”