MRI for the Fruit Fly

There were three bananas in the fruit basket before I left the house and when I got home there were none. “Where are the bananas,” I asked my husband. “He's a menace,” he replied motioning to the boy child. “I don't know, he was running around with them.”

I found one in my backpack that night. Four days later, I found one outside. The last one may have been eaten and at least some of the peels made it to the trash. But I did see two fruit flies on the bathroom wall. They are much smaller than house flies, not as annoying, and... not as fast. I didn't take much time to contemplate the value of the species to science and medicine before I squashed them.

The fruit fly, Drosophila, has been an incredible tool for scientists. They're cheap, fast growing, easy to mutate, and their genes are surprisingly similar to humans. Laboratories all over the nation and world are churning out lots of data on the bugs.

A new study headed by Ronald Davis at Stanford University, introduces a technique that might make future fly data even more... fruitful. Using a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology, the researchers imaged several life stages of Drosophila. What makes this different from standard microscopy is the organisms can stay alive.

When I first saw the report, I imaged the machine that I've seen at the hospital. A large tubular thing with a white padded table--in the middle sitting a tiny fly. The device used in the study, however, looks more like something you'd brew beer in.

The prospect of imaging the live organisms with time has far reaching implications for studies relating to many fields including development and neuroscience. In fact, the ability to “see” neurotransmitters and use complementary techniques involving genomics are intriguing avenues discussed by the authors.

Now, if only I could image my house and find the remains of our own Drosophila breeding experiment.


Null, B., Liu, C.W., Hedehus, M., Conolly, S., Davis, R.W., Zwaka, T. (2008). High-Resolution, In Vivo Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Drosophila at 18.8 Tesla. PLoS ONE, 3(7), e2817. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002817