Confocal Bio-imaging Facility

Confocal Bio-Imaging Facility

The newly-founded Confocal Bio-Imaging Facility (established in 2007) is a multi-user imaging and microanalysis facility which contains state-of-the-art confocal and light microscopes as well as a range of microanalytical instruments.

Bio-imaging unites the power of microscopy, biology, biophysics, biochemistry and advanced computational methods to study how genes, molecules and proteins work and interact in living cells and organisms. With the help of fluorescence and confocal microscopes we are able to visualize and decipher animal and plant cell functional processes and to study how they are affected by changing environmental, physiological and disease conditions, such as cancer.

Instruments

• Inverted Leica TCS SP5 laser scanning confocal microscope:
  This system uses AOBS variable spectral detection instead of traditional emission filters and has the following laser lines: 405, 458, 476, 488, 496, 514, 561, 594 and 633 nm. It has micro-spectral detection capability and has a fully tuneable Multi-Photon imaging system; a Becker & Hickl Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging (FLIM) and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy systems.
• Upright Leica DM6000B SP5 laser scanning confocal microscope with 458, 476, 488, 514, 543 and 633 nm laser lines and the Horiba Raman spectral detection capability.

Other light and fluorescence microscopes and equipment

• Fluorescence Olympus BX60 microscope and Jenoptik ProgRes C14 digital camera
• Fluorescence Leica MZ12 stereomicroscope and JVC digital camera
• Automontage software package with associated hardware - automated Z drive and Optiscan unit
• Leica Z16 Apo macroscope and Leica DFC 500 digital camera
• Leica RM 2165 rotary microtome
• Leica EM KMR2 glass knife maker
• Olympus E1 5 megapixel digital camera with macro lens, infra-red and UV filters
• Olympus PM C35DX 35mm camera and control unit for photomicrography

Other Analytical Instruments

• Varian 820-MS ICP Mass Spectrometer
  UP-193 Laser Ablation System
• Tru-Spec CN Carbon / Nitrogen Determinator
• UV-Vis Detector / Varian Polaris HPLC system
• Varian SPS3 Sample Preparation System
• OceanOptics fluorescence and absorption spectrometer with an optical probe detection option

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