TIRF Super-resolution microscope

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At the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the Faculty of Medicine (University of Freiburg), nine research groups study molecular mechanisms underlying cell function, with a focus on membrane biogenesis, movement and turnover, mitochondrial organization, autophagy with formation and dynamics of autophagosomes, ribosome assembly and dynamics. Since the biochemical projects now have developed a high demand for advanced live cell imaging, a microscope with a flexible and advanced operation is highly needed. In all our projects, small structures or vesicles are involved, which are impossible to resolve by wide-field microscopy. To understand the dynamics, assemblies and substructure of the structures, we need advanced microscopy techniques including super-resolution microscopy, which allows to analyze protein complexes and their dynamics in living cells as well as protein assemblies of in vitro reconstitutions. Especially for the analysis of substructures also in mammalian cells, wide field microscopy is limiting, as it does not provide enough contrast to see small punctate objects such as autophagosomes. We apply for an integrated super-resolution microscopy system, which allows a similar workflow for all of the setups and therefore an efficient training of the graduate students and postdocs as well as an easy usage and maintenance. The microscope will fulfill a major demand of the nine research groups of the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (including two ERC grants, a DFG Koselleck project, a Heisenberg project, an Emmy- Noether project, seven projects of the new SFB, and numerous projects in the cluster of excellence CIBSS and in graduate schools).