MRI: Acquisition of a Confocal Raman Microscope with Cell-Sorting Capability at Montana State University

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An award is made to Montana State University (MSU) to acquire a Confocal Raman microscope with cell-sorting ability. The Center for Biofilm Engineering at MSU, where the requested instrument will be located, is a student-focused research center of excellence that was originally funded by the NSF-ERC program. The Center serves a key role, both nationally and internationally, in training biofilm researchers and also has a strong track record of broadening the participation of women and Native Americans in engineering and science through its research programs that emphasize hands-on research education. Currently, one of the most pressing challenges in microbiology is to identify roles for individual microorganisms in complex, native habitats. Raman microscopy is a novel way to study the contribution of individual microbes in complex environments that range from human and environmental health to agricultural productivity and ecosystem functioning.Raman is a vibrational spectroscopic method that provides a fingerprint of the molecular composition of a sample. A cell's Raman spectrum contains information about its identity, physiological state, metabolic activity, and health/disease state. MSU faculty and students will use the Raman microscope to characterize the physiology, activity, and ecology of cultivated and uncultivated microbes in their native state in a large number of ecosystems, including geothermal springs, deep-sea sediment, and industrially and medically relevant biofilms. The ability to use Raman for fast and non-destructive analyses will allow living cells to be analyzed. This will enable downstream experiments such as cell separation followed by molecular analyses. The acquisition of this instrument enables the expansion of MSU faculty into novel research trajectories and help them transition the field of microbiome research from correlative studies to causal understanding of microbial function.