A Lightsheet Microscope for an Established Core Facility

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A diverse group of 9 NIH-funded teams and investigators at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and School of Nursing request funds to purchase a Carl Zeiss Lightsheet 7 fluorescence microscope. This new state- of-the-art system will be situated in the UMB Core Confocal Facility, a well-established core facility that will oversee use, training, and service for the microscope. Lightsheet fluorescence microscopy occupies a unique but important niche for imaging intact organoids, organs, tissues, and organisms, both in fixed, cleared samples or in live specimens and embryos. This imaging modality fills an important gap in the technical arsenal of the university, which has excellent facilities for imaging at scales from electron microscopy to PET/CT and MRI but lacks a microscope optimized for high-resolution, large-volume imaging. This has left a widening hole in our ability to conduct relevant research in many of the areas of historic strength. With this in mind, the Core Facility organized a series of instrument demos, and user labs have dedicated substantial effort to adopt and adapt several tissue clearing methods suited to lightsheet imaging. After evaluation of 5 systems, the Major and Minor Users were unanimous in their selection of the Lightsheet 7 (LS7) as the instrument which would best meet their collective needs. Institutional support for this request is broad and deep, with the Dean’s Office, the Core and its host Department of Physiology, other user departments, the UM Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center and including a substantial group of faculty committing funds and numerous other forms of support to purchase and maintain this new LS7. The new instrument will be incorporated into the long-standing and successful Confocal Core Facility at the University and will thus benefit from stable and well-tested policies for training. The presence of extensive on-campus expertise along with pledged support from experts at nearby institutions promises swift and efficient utilization of this new technology. The expert Manager at the Core not only has several years of experience training users on a variety of microscopes for live and fixed imaging but has even built an alternative lightsheet microscope (diSPIM). The school has long-standing and continuing commitment to support the needs of the Core for space, personnel, and administrative services. Funded by a major NCRR construction grant, the Core has undergone extensive renovations to house our microscopes including the LS7, so the LS7 will be in an excellent facility located central to the Major Users. The system meets the long-term goals of the School to build research resources, including commitments to encourage use of the instrument and the tracking of its productivity. In sum, the availability of this new technology in the School’s Confocal Core Facility would directly and strongly benefit the research of the Major Users. More broadly, by incorporation to annual graduate course offerings and supporting numerous training grants run by and contributed to by our users, the LS7 will add critically important new capabilities to advance all aspects of NIH-sponsored research throughout a large and diverse medical research university.