MRI: Acquisition of a Confocal Microscope for Multidisciplinary Resesarch and Teaching at an Undergraduate Liberal Arts College

MRI：购置一台共焦显微镜，用于本科文学院的多学科研究和教学

• 批准号: 2018114
• 负责人: Amanda Crocker
• 金额: $ 53.08万
• 依托单位: Middlebury College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-10-01 至 2023-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2018114&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: MRI; Acquisition; Confocal; Microscope; Multidisciplinary

An award was made to Middlebury College to acquire a confocal microscope. This award provides the rural areas outside central Vermont with access to a key piece of modern research technology. Access to this instrument allows for enhanced education and research opportunities for students and faculty members at Middlebury College, as well as for colleagues from Castleton University and Norwich University. At Middlebury College, this microscope will be used in multiple courses across disciplines including biology, neuroscience, and physics, as well as in student-directed independent studies. This will expose almost a fourth of the entire student body to new, cutting-edge research technology. Within these disciplines, half of the students are women, nearly one fourth are of an ethnic minority, and over 15% are Pell grant recipients or first generation college students. This grant also supports a number of community outreach events and activities. Free and reduced lunch rates are as high as 56% in the communities surrounding Middlebury College, indicating substantial rural poverty. This poverty combined with low college-enrollment rates limits the access of many school-age children to high quality research and learning experiences. The confocal microscope made available by this award will enable Middlebury College to offer several new opportunities to educate and inspire local school-age children.This award also enables Middlebury and other regional faculty to pursue novel avenues of research, which were previously hampered or impossible. This award supports faculty across disciplines pursuing a wide range of research and education. In physics, a confocal microscope will allow faculty and students to employ a novel absorption-based imaging technique using the photothermal effect for contrast. In neuroscience, on-site access to a confocal microscope will allow faculty and student researchers mentored by accomplished faculty to investigate the development of the nervous system through multi- channel, high-resolution fluorescent immunohistochemistry and 3D reconstructions. This award also supports the pursuit of questions pertaining to the cellular response in neurons and glia to mechanical stress. The confocal microscope will allow Biology faculty to pursue questions involved in the regulation of vesicle release in C. elegans, memory formation in rats, and oocyte development. This award will improve undergraduate participation in advanced research by supporting a microscope that can rapidly colocalize multiple fluorescent labels from in-vivo and in-vitro specimens while providing an accessible user-interface for student learning. This will support the grantees’ mission to train the next generation of scientists and policy makers. This award enables novel research avenues pursued by undergraduate students and faculty, and results will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals and at local, national, and international scientific conferences.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.

米德尔伯里学院获得了一台共聚焦显微镜。该奖项为佛蒙特州中部以外的农村地区提供了获得现代研究技术关键部分的机会。使用该仪器可以为米德尔伯里学院的学生和教师以及卡斯尔顿大学和诺维奇大学的同事提供更好的教育和研究机会。在米德尔伯里学院，这种显微镜将用于生物学、神经科学和物理学等学科的多个课程，以及学生自主学习。这将使近四分之一的学生接触到新的尖端研究技术。在这些学科中，一半的学生是女性，近四分之一是少数民族，超过15%的学生是佩尔助学金获得者或第一代大学生。这项奖助金也支持一些社区外展活动和活动。在米德尔伯里学院周围的社区，免费和减少的午餐率高达56%，这表明农村地区存在大量贫困。这种贫困加上低大学入学率限制了许多学龄儿童获得高质量研究和学习经验的机会。该奖项提供的共聚焦显微镜将使米德尔伯里学院为教育和激励当地学龄儿童提供一些新的机会。该奖项还使明德学院和其他地区的教师能够追求以前受阻或不可能的新研究途径。该奖项支持跨学科的教师从事广泛的研究和教育。在物理方面，共聚焦显微镜将允许教师和学生采用一种新的基于吸收的成像技术，利用光热效应进行对比。在神经科学方面，现场使用共聚焦显微镜将允许教师和学生研究人员通过多通道、高分辨率荧光免疫组织化学和3D重建来研究神经系统的发展。该奖项还支持有关神经元和胶质细胞对机械应力的细胞反应的研究。共聚焦显微镜将允许生物学教授研究秀丽隐杆线虫囊泡释放调控、大鼠记忆形成和卵母细胞发育等问题。通过支持一种显微镜，该显微镜可以快速地从体内和体外标本中定位多个荧光标记，同时为学生学习提供一个可访问的用户界面，该奖项将提高大学生对高级研究的参与。这将支持受资助者培训下一代科学家和决策者的使命。该奖项为本科生和教师提供了新颖的研究途径，研究成果将在同行评议的期刊上以及当地、国家和国际科学会议上传播。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

The distribution and function of GDE2, a regulator of spinal motor neuron survival, are disrupted in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

• DOI: 10.1186/s40478-022-01376-x
• 发表时间: 2022-05-12
• 期刊: Acta neuropathologica communications
• 影响因子: 7.1

Cumulus cell co-culture in media drops does not improve rescue in vitro maturation of vitrified-warmed immature oocytes

培养基滴中的卵丘细胞共培养并不能改善玻璃化加热的未成熟卵母细胞的体外成熟

• DOI: 10.1016/j.xfss.2023.05.004
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: F&S Science
• 作者: Gordon, Catherine E.;Combelles, Catherine MH.;Lanes, Andrea;Patel, Jay;Racowsky, Catherine
• 通讯作者: Racowsky, Catherine