The Advanced Imaging Unit currently has a few microscopes divided in four categories.
Zeiss' Stereo Lumar is a fluorescence capable and fully automated stereoscope with an increased focusing range, letting you take pictures of tissues of whole adult fish, mice and even larger animals. With it's high resolution, high quality ApoLumar 1.2 lens, variable zoom and large working distance, users have flexibility to choose between their desired zoom without sacrificing quality.
The Aequoria MDS system is a macroscopic system to acquire luminescence in large samples like living large organisms, bacterial plates, plants or well plates, making it suitable for high-throughput screens. With an EMCCD chip it can detect the smallest signals on your samples with ease.
The DeltaVision is a fully automated research microscope that offers high sensitivity to fluorescence and interference contrast (DIC). With an EM-CCD camera, fully motorized stage (XYZ) and filters, as well as a controlled atmosphere box, coupled with excellent optics it provides excellent conditions for live imaging of cells. The DeltaVision system is also very tightly controlled to provide post-acquisition optical sectioning through deconvolution algorithms; it is also very good for quantitative image-processing.
The Leica DMRA2 is a fully automated research microscope that offers high sensitivity to fluorescence and interference contrast (DIC). The powerful image-processing Leica DMRA2 software operates the microscope with precision.
The Leica DMLB2 is an upright microscope for experiments with Brightfield and DIC.
The Nikon HCS is an inverted widefield microscope with complete automation possibility. This microscope allows users to acquire large amounts of data with ease by giving instructions to the software at the beginning and it will do the rest. It is equipped with a sCMOS Andor Zyla camera with a large field of view and a chip size of 2048x2048, with both high and low magnification objectives for a quick screen with low magnification and then a higher resolution image after object identification.
The Leica HCScreening is an inverted widefield microscope with an automated stage and fast sets of filter wheels that allow automatic image acquisition (screening) and large field tile/grid stitching through a fast acquisition protocol. This microscope is prepared for automatically acquiring images at a lower magnification, where it will identify an object or structure of interest, and then acquire them at a higher and better resolution magnification.
The Leica HCScreening is an inverted widefield microscope with an automated stage and fast sets of filter wheels that allow automatic image acquisition (screening) and large field tile/grid stitching through a fast acquisition protocol. This microscope is prepared for automatically acquiring images at a lower magnification, where it will identify an object or structure of interest, and then acquire them at a higher and better resolution magnification.
Confocal microscopy permits one to optically section a fluorescent sample (such as a cell that has been stained with contrasting fluorescent dyes) with superior resolution by using a pinhole to reject light that originates outside of the chosen area. By collecting a series of such images through the depth of a sample, the user may assemble a highly accurate three-dimensional reconstruction of the entire sample. The Leica SP5 confocal microscope is equipped with a spectral head that employs a prism, movable slits, mirrors, and computer control to permit the operator to choose which bands of light at specific wavelengths will be focused simultaneously onto each of three photomultiplier detectors. This system also allows emission spectra (with 5-nm resolution) to be collected from a diffraction-limited-size spot.
Another SP5, with a few notable differences. Besides having an upright configuration, it is equipped with very sensitive Hybrid detectors and a resonant scanner, making it ideal for confocal live imaging.
Spinning disk confocal microscopy offers several advantages over conventional optical microscopy, including widefield and laser scanning confocal microscopy. This confocal technique allows acquisition of images at very high frame rates with minimum illumination of samples. These qualities make Spinning Disk confocal microscopy particularly well suited to high speed 3D imaging of living systems.
This confocal microscope allows acquisition of images at very high frame rates with minimum illumination of samples in a broader field of view, when compared with other spinning disks.
A multi-photon, or two-photon, microscope uses instrumentation similar to that of a laser scanning confocal microscope: A laser source for sample excitation, a scanhead with galvanometer controlled mirrors (or acousto-optic deflectors) to scan the excitation beam, and photomultiplier tubes to detect fluorescent signals. However, the confocal image differs in that optical sectioning is obtained using excitation in multi-photon microscopy whereas in confocal microscopy it is achieved using the emission pinhole...
The Deltavision OMX is a structured illumination super-resolution microscope that allows the visualization of structures or objects bellow the theoretical limit of resolution. This microscope technique uses the structured illumination approach which is simple to use and gives fast results with minimal to medium processing, allowing users to obtain super resolution images with ease. The resolution limit of this technique is about half the theoretical limit of conventional microscopes at about 100nm.
The dSTORM is another super-resolution microscope based on single molecule localization microscopy technique, more specifically, Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy. This technique relies on acquiring a big number of frames over time to distinguish different molecules while still pin pointing their location with high accuracy. The temporal distinction is achieved by inducing a "dark" triple state of energy which will not emit fluorescent light, allowing a distinction between different fluorophores in very small spaces, even bellow the actual resolution limit. This technique is easy to use but the sample preparation can be tricky and it requires big data storage and high processing power and expertise to properly reconstruct reliable and useful data.
Light Sheet Microscopy (LSM) is a fluorescence microscopy technique, where the illumination is done perpendicularly to the detection. The technique shapes the illumination laser beam into a rectangle and then focuses it down only in one direction, using a cylindrical lens (SPIM) or galvanometric mirrors (DSLM). This forms a thin "sheet of light" right in the focal plane of the detection objective, illuminating the whole sample plane at the same time. A CMOS camera records the fluorescent signal. This allows obtaining images of a big area in a fast way with a good sectioning of the sample and out-of-focus light suppression. LSM is especially well suited for the investigation of the development of large samples to study features (such as gene expression patterns) that require high resolution while being extended over a large volume and a long period of time. It has been successfully used to track developmental processes on Zebra fish, Drosophila fly, C. elegans nematodes or Arabidopsis plants among others.
The OPenT microscope is a Optical Projection Tomography system which allows to see big samples such as whole organs or embryos without having to open them or taking the organ out. Samples need to be clear and transparent. This system works basically as a CT scan but uses light instead of x-rays for the image acquisition. For more details, advantages and limitations, please speak with the Advanced Imaging personnel.
