The SRC is the only organization with the necessary resources to provide the books, training, computerized technology, and consulting expertise that biomedical scientists need to apply state-of-the-art stereology to biomedical research projects.

Give us a call (410.643.4901) or send an email (src@disector.com); learn what is meant by our motto -- "Good Science Through Good Stereology."

The demand for stereology resources has grown exponentially in the past decade. Among the factors for this large and growing interest is that unbiased stereology provides the state-of-the-art approaches for the quantitative analysis of morphological parameters (number, size, length, variation, spatial distribution, etc.). These techniques can be applied to the analysis of cells, fibers, blood vessels and other structures on tissue sections. Thus, stereology is an important component of many biomedical research projects in all developed nations.

In the past decade, this interest in modern stereology approaches have been further stimulated by the preference of journal editors and grant reviewers for studies that apply good stereological approaches to studies that involve changes in morphological structure.

Although stereological approaches for the analysis of objects in 3-D date to ancient Egyptian and Greek times, the term "stereology" entered the scientific vocabulary in the early 1960s (for historical review, see The History of Modern Stereology on the IBRO website.

The Modern Era Of Unbiased Stereology

A crucial meeting of scientists occurred in 1961 at a mountaintop retreat called the Feldberg in the Black Forest of Germany. The attendees included scientists from a wide range of disciplines: biology, materials sciences, mathematics, geology, and engineering. Together, she scientists shared a mutual interest: How to accurately quantifiy 3-D objects based on their appearance on 2-D sections?

This multidisciplinary group of scientists selected the term stereology (Greek "analysis of three-dimensions"). Beginning in the mid 1960s stereology related publications began to appear in the peer-review, scientific literature. Since that time, scientists from a variety of disciplines have met regularly to discuss stereology-related principles and practices at international conferences held throughout the world.

The introduction of unbiased (design-based) stereology

In the early 1980s a new set of approaches using the unbiased (design-based) approaches was introduced by biostereologists. Within a decade these powerful approaches began to replace methods that were assumption- and model-based and relied on faulty correction factors. Today, unbiased stereology provides the state-of-the-art approaches for making reliable estimates of morphological parameters in tissue sections.

Reference:

Mouton, P.R., Principles and Practices of Unbiased Stereology,Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland (2002).

Mouton, P.R. The History of Modern Stereology, IBRO website (2005).

The pages and links in this section review important theoretical concepts underlying modern stereology, including:

Methods for counting number of objects (e.g., cells), length of linear features (fibers), surface area and volumes of defined tissue regions.

Learn more about bias and its impact on morphological analysis of biological tissue.

Review the first-order stereological parameters

Variation is a second order stereological parameter

Why is systematic-random sampling unbiased and efficient?

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The Stereology Resource Center (SRC) provides full service, comprehensive support to biomedical researchers for their stereology studies. This support includes state-of-the-art training, computerized systems, books, outsourcing services, and consultation for testing hypotheses involving morphological changes in biological tissue.

For more about the SRC, who we are and our mission, see SRC Services and About Us.