MRI: Acquisition of Leica STED Super-resolution and FALCON Microscope System for the Clemson Light Imaging Facility

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An award is made to Clemson University to acquire super-resolution fluorescence lifetime imaging system upgrades to an existing multiphoton/spectral confocal imaging system. These added capabilities will significantly enhance the research objectives of more than 30 principle investigators at Clemson University. As this equipment will be placed in Clemson Light Imaging Facility, a core research facility, it will be accessible by the entire Clemson research community and to the extended Clemson research family, including nearby universities and businesses, through collaborative partnerships and outreach programs. From nanoparticles to cellular exosomes and organelles, there is a great need for increased resolution in fluorescence-based imaging studies, which the super-resolution capacity will provide. The fluorescence lifetime imaging system generates images based upon the decay of a fluorophore's fluorescence. This "lifetime" provides information about the fluorophore's direct environment, producing an image that contains not only structural information, but information about pH, ion concentrations, reduced oxygen species, and molecular binding as well. These systems will serve as avenues of training in advanced imaging techniques for the next generation of great researchers and inventors. At Clemson University, this current cohort of scientists is made of undergraduates, graduate students and postdocs/technicians.With the increased resolution afforded by super-resolution, researchers can visualize extremely small structures such as cellular exosomes, which play a role in cell-cell communication. Studies of actin filament formation dynamics in ciliated organisms can lead to new insights in cell motility, and in neuronal dendrites, where actin controls the size and shape of synaptic connections, scientists can begin to unravel the mysteries of learning and memory in the brain. The addition of the fluorescence lifetime imaging system will provide unprecedented imaging capabilities for tracking changes in cellular structure and metabolism within microenvironments from biofilms to tissues. The additional environmental data generated through fluorescence lifetime imaging will enable greater coupling of molecular modeling and experimental efforts, enabling the development of more robust simulations that can aide biologists and even engineers. Images and data generated through the use of these systems will be publicly disseminated through a variety of peer-reviewed journals and publications as well as at scientific meetings.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.