Instrument Development for Three-Dimensional Fluorescence Microscopy

本提案要求支持购买和开发几台仪器，这些仪器将用于大力推进美国国立卫生研究院目前在新型三维显微镜领域支持的一项研究工作。具体来说，目前正在研究的三维显微镜系统将通过获得氩气激光器、x-y计算机控制扫描系统和工作站，发展成具有实时重建能力的高分辨率荧光显微镜系统。470nm的氩气激光扩展了显微镜系统，使其能够在荧光模式下工作，从而有可能使该系统成为生物学和生命科学许多分支中非常有用和强大的工具。x-y扫描系统允许显微镜系统执行标本扫描而不是光束扫描，从而确保分辨率和对比度在整个视野范围内是相同的。该工作站将提高从显微镜系统获得的三维数据的分析速度一个数量级，从而使实时三维数据处理和图像呈现成为可能。提出的仪器开发活动的结果可能会导致更好的三维信息处理领域，如实时图像处理，显微镜，数据存储和采集在生命科学。

This proposal requests support for the purchase and development of several pieces of instrument which will be used to significantly advance a current research effort supported by the National Institutes of Health in the area of novel three-dimensional (3-D) microscopy. Specifically, the 3-D microscopy system currently being investigated will be developed into a high-resolution fluorescence microscopy system with real-time reconstruction capability by acquiring an Argon laser, an x-y computer-controlled scanning system, and a workstation. The Argon laser at 470 nm extends the microscopy system to be able to operate in a fluorescent mode, thereby potentially making the system a very useful and powerful tool in many branches of biology and the life sciences. The x-y scanning system allows the microscopy system to perform specimen-scanning instead of optical beam-scanning, thereby ensuring that the resolution and contrast are identical across the entire field of view. The workstation will improve the speed of the analysis of the 3-D data obtained from the microscopy system by an order of magnitude, thereby making it possible for real-time 3-D data manipulation and image presentation. The results of the proposed instrumentation development activity could lead to better 3-D information processing in areas such as real-time image processing, microscopy, and data storage and acquisition in the life sciences.