Image Analysis Facility
The Image Analysis Facility houses five major pieces of equipment:
-Molecular Dynamics Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope
-Video-based digital imaging microscope
-Tecan Multiwell Plate Reader
-Millipore Cytofluor Multiwell Fluorescence Plate Reader
-Zeiss Axioplan epifluorescent microscope with a Digital Camera.
The facility provides a wide variety of options for the analysis and quantification of fluorescent probes, markers and antibodies within fixed and living cells.
All of the computers within the facility are now networked to each other as well as to the institutional network. Included in the network is the Codonics printer. The tremendous advantage of the networked environment in the facility is that images can be acquired on the confocal workstation and then rapidly and easily transmitted either to the other workstation for analysis or to the Codonics printer for the generation of hard-copy, publication-quality images. In terms of productivity, users no longer have to wait until the workstation on the confocal is available for data analysis. In addition, several investigators are now printing publication-quality images from their office or lab PC’s by remote access of the Codonics printer facilitating their productivity as well as increasing the use of the laboratory by the biomedical research faculty.
Also, a Zeiss Axiovert 25 inverted cell culture microscope was purchased in the past year. The acquisition of this microscope alleviates the necessity of carrying one’s cells down the corridor to the departmental cell culture microscope thus facilitating the ease with which investigators can prepare and examine the cells used in the facility.