High Content Screening Microscope

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The applicants analyze different cellular and subcellular structures as well as vesicle release and molecular signal transduction processes in short and long-term experiments. Their research usually requires a simultaneous microscopic analysis of many samples. This is not sufficiently possible with the existing equipment. Thus the applicants urgently need to expand their research capacity in this area. For this purpose, an automated confocal high-throughput microscope with low-maintenance costs is needed, that permits targeted drug discovery, as well as the rapid optimization of test series. The device will be used in for a broad range of experimental applications. It needs powerful automated data acquisition and analysis algorithms that enable several hundred individual experiments per day. Although primarily 96-well plates will be used, it should be possible to use many other plate formats, such as 24 well and 384 well plates, as well as microscope slides. In addition, the instrument should permit flexible, quantitative, high-throughput analysis of widely differing cellular structures, precise analysis of subcellular structures in individual cells, as well as for the automatic 3-D reconstruction of spheroids and large tissue sections. Physiological conditions are necessary for live-cell imaging of signal transduction processes and long term cell motility experiments. A pipetting robot is necessary to examine acute reactions to multiple different test compounds. High-intensity LEDs are needed for confocal analysis of multiple dyes in different tissues. In addition to the device should be equipped with a broad spectrum light source that permits the excitation of dyes that are not covered by the LED excitation spectrum.