In this project we set to develop a microscopy add-on that will enable volumetric imaging, in real-time, of several cubic millimeters of mammalian tissue (brain). A fundamental milestone in this project was set as the development of the real-time photon counting capabilities to extend our previous work on the topic where we demonstrated the benefits of such approach for regimes of low-light, albeit our application required off-line processing hence the need to push this into the real time domain. We identified a commercial partner (Thorlabs) whom provide a demo microscope with advanced electronics that could serve our purpose, yet technical issues and delayed repairs turnover forced us to come up with an alternative strategy. We developed a new open-source software, built around the most advanced electronics, that performs the required task. The code is made public and a manuscript regarding this new software and electronics is being currently reviewed for publication. We strongly believe that this development brings us (and the entire community) one big step forward towards introducing advanced imaging modalities into the surgery room, this to allow surgeons and in particular neurosurgeons, in the identification of tumor vs healthy tissue during operations. Indeed, the advanced made in this project have now pushed us into the next technological development steps into this promising directions.
