Patent ID: 8189898

Claim:
A gene expression image constructing method for constructing a gene expression image in which an expression state of genes present in a sample and a stereoscopic image of the sample are associated with each other, the method comprising a cutting step of cutting a plurality of samples that represent said sample, wherein each of the plurality of samples is cut into sections in one direction such that at least two orthogonal directions are cut; a sample stereoscopic image construction step of picking up images of the sections of the plurality of samples cut at the cutting step and constructing the stereoscopic image of the sample which is a three-dimensional image of the sample, based on a plurality of the picked-up section images; an expression amount measurement step of measuring an amount of expression of the genes present in the sample corresponding to the picked-up section images based on a plurality of slices associated with the picked-up section images, prepared when the samples are cut at the cutting step; and a gene expression image construction step of constructing the gene expression image based on a predetermined image reconstruction technique from the stereoscopic image of the sample constructed at the sample stereoscopic image construction step and the amount of expression associated with the picked-up section images of each of the samples, measured at the expression amount measurement step.