National Instrumentation Facility for Optical Microscopy

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A center for the development of new instrumentation and the facilitation of its application for biological research has been established. Its objective is to provide for the systematic invention and development of improved electro-optical microscopic imaging quantitation technologies, and to facilitate the application of these new physical instrumentation capabilities through collaborative research in molecular cell biology. The needs of biological research push relentlessly at instrumental limitations even as they advance. The molecular dynamics of vital processes in living cells can be revealed and measured by appropriate electro-optical microscopic image acquisition, photon counting quantitation of weak molecular fluorescence, and computerized digital image processing with spatial and temporal transform analysis. The Center will aim to optimize instrumentation capability for quantitation of receptor dynamics, cell motion, structural fluctuations, spatial evolution of calcium ion activity, membrane potential, pH and receptor distributions, and molecular motions of individual fluorescence micro-image acquisition at faint light levels (photon counting) and fast (millisecond) acquisition of brighter transient images with efficient digital image processing, time resolved fluorescence imaging, utilization of chemical indicators, 3D image construction, quantitative confocal microscopy, image processing and laser interference imaging. Collaborative interdisciplinary research to be accommodated by the center provides for new cell biology research and focuses the instrumentation developments on practicable technologies that can be adopted by other laboratories.