A screenshot of MarrowQuant annotating a bone marrow trephine biopsy from a patient surfing from chemotherapy-induced aplasia. Credit: Olaia Naveiras (EPFL)
A screenshot of MarrowQuant annotating a bone marrow trephine biopsy from a patient surfing from chemotherapy-induced aplasia. Credit: Olaia Naveiras (EPFL) Scientists have developed a digital pathology tool for quantifying bone marrow compartments in standard histological sections. Named "MarrowQuant", the software makes it possible to examine bone marrow biopsies as well as to re-examine historical collections of bone-marrow samples and even old clinical trials. The bone marrow is the soft tissue inside our bones. Its main role is to produce stem cells that will go on to become various cells of the blood, including white blood cells that fight infections, red blood cells that carry oxygen throughout the body, and platelets that control bleeding. But the bone marrow also contains fat cells, the adipocytes, which were for a long time thought of as "passive fillers" of the marrow cavity. In recent years, however, bone marrow adipocytes have been shown to carry out a far more important role within the microenvironment of the bone marrow than initially thought.
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