Equipment for Upgrading the Optical Sectioning Microscope Facility

在这项应用中，我们建议对现有的生物系光学切片显微镜(OSM)设施进行升级。我们正在申请几件设备，以便利该仪器的使用，并提供新的能力，以加强该设施。OSM使用离焦光去除的计算方法来提供活的和固定的标本的高分辨率3D图像。与共聚焦显微镜相比，它的主要优势是使用低得多的照明水平来生成高质量的图像，从而将对活标本的损害降至最低。我们对设施升级的请求有四个主要组成部分。首先，我们希望在光学显微镜中增加共焦和部分共焦光学，这样根据样品的灵敏度，我们可以选择将计算方法应用于非共焦、部分共焦或完全共焦图像。其次，我们建议增加产生视频输出的功能，以便我们有办法存储许多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，供研讨会观众观看。第三，我们要求改进，以便利我们处理的海量数据集的存储、检索和硬拷贝输出，以便更容易地访问数据。第四，我们寻求在OSM中增加显微注射功能，以便可以快速进行几种不同类型的体内注射实验，所有这些改进的主要目的是使该仪器更容易为用户所用，并弥补目前该设施的不足。随着这些组件的加入，我们的OSM设施将继续走在生物成像的前沿，并在未来许多年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.