Equipment for Upgrading the Optical Sectioning Microscope Facility

在此申请中，我们建议升级现有的生物学系光学切片显微镜（OSM）设备。我们要求提供几件设备，以方便仪器的使用，并提供新的能力，以加强设施。OSM使用失焦光去除的计算方法来提供活体和固定标本的高分辨率3d图像。与共聚焦显微镜相比，它的主要优点是使用较低的照明水平来产生高质量的图像，从而最大限度地减少对活体标本的损害。我们升级设施的要求有四个主要组成部分。首先，我们希望将共聚焦和部分共聚焦光学添加到OSM中，以便根据标本的灵敏度，我们可以选择将计算方法应用于非共聚焦，部分共聚焦或完全共聚焦图像。其次，我们建议增加视频输出功能，这样我们就有办法存储许多3d延时序列的电影供我们自己分析，也有办法记录有代表性的电影，以便向研讨会的观众展示。第三，我们要求改进，以方便我们处理的大量数据集的存储、检索和硬拷贝输出，从而使数据更容易访问。第四，我们试图将显微注射功能添加到OSM中，以便可以快速进行几种不同类型的体内注射实验。所有这些增强的主要目的是使用户更容易使用该仪器，并弥补设备目前的缺点。随着这些组件的增加，我们的OSM设施将保持在生物成像的前沿，并在未来的许多年里继续促进我们的研究。

In this application, we propose to upgrade the existing Department of Biology Optical Sectioning Microscope (OSM) Facility. We are requesting several pieces of equipment that will facilitate the use of the instrument and provide new capabilities that will enhance the facility. The OSM uses the computational methods of out-of-focus light removal to provide high resolution 3-D images of both living and fixed specimens. Its main advantage over confocal microscopy is that is uses far lower levels of illumination to generate high quality images, thereby minimizing the damage to living specimens. Our request for upgrading the facility has four main components. First, we wish to add confocal and partially confocal optics to the OSM, so that depending on the sensitivity of the specimen, we may choose to apply computational methods to either non-confocal, partially confocal or fully confocal images. Second, we propose to add the capability for producing video output so that we have a means to store many movies of 3-D time-lapse sequences for our own analysis, and also a means to record representative movies for presentation to seminar audiences. Third, we request improvements that will facilitate the storage, retrieval and hard copy output of the massive data sets that we work with, so that the data are more easily accessible. Fourth, we seek to add the capability for microinjection to the OSM, so that several different sorts of in vivo injection experiments can be performed expeditiously, The main purpose of all of these enhancements is to make the instrument more accessible to the users and to remedy current shortcomings in the facility. With the addition of these components, our OSM facility will remain on the forefront of biological imaging and continue to facilitate our research for many years to come.