New confocal microscope will be coming to the CCI

We are pleased to announce the purchase of a new confocal scanning microscope. The plan is that the machine will be able to take over part of the workload on the busy Evident Spinning disk. We chose to get functionality on the system to flexibly automate imaging, with a focus on being able to do multiplex imaging efficiently and image live as fast as possible. NIR imaging (with excitation at 730-790 nm) and emission detection up to 850 nm will be included. This is good to detect more fluorescent colors in a single imaging round (decreasing lengthy image series in 4i multiplex procedures), to have low background levels, and to image deep into thick samples. We are finishing up the tender procedures, and chose to go for the Stellaris 8 platform of Leica microsystems.

Some features of the system:

• Lens set to acquire overviews, thick sample, and high resolution images (magnifications: 4 (NA 0.13), 10 (NA 0.4) , 20 (NA 0.75), 40 (NA 1.3), and 63 (NA 1.4))
• Tune-able white light laser (440-790 nm) with pulse picker
• 5 sensitive HyD (2x HyD-S, 2x HyD-X, 1x HyD-R) detectors and a transmission detector (DIC optics are included)
• Tunable excitation setting (prism-based emission filtering and AOBS-mediated freedom in the dichroic filter selection
• 8K resonance scanner (with rotated scan options)
• LAS-X interface (a.o. Navigator, TauSens, 3D Visualization, Dyefinder, Assay editor, Lightning)
• TauSense and Falcon lifetime measurement modules that allow this extra fluorescence characteristic to be extracted from samples.
• Extra solid state lasers of 405, 448 and 488 nm to perform faster photomanipulation at these wavelengths.
• A “Tokai Hit warming box” live cell incubator that uses IR heater plates instead of fans to warm the samples, CO₂– and humidity controlled
• Sample holders to accommodate well plates, dishes, slides
• Encoded stage to re-position stage coordinates in re-imaging sessions efficiently