Andor Dragonfly 201 Spinning Disk Confocal Microscope System

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Project Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this Basic Instrumentation Grant proposal is to request funds to purchase the Andor Dragonfly 201 Spinning Disk Confocal Microscope System to be housed in the Science Hall building at Rowan University, Glassboro campus. The acquisition of this state-of-the-art instrument will fill a critical need for high-resolution confocal microscopy for a growing group of Rowan investigators funded by the NIH. All the participating investigators have indicated the significant need for the instrument not only to support their respective NIH- funded projects but to expand and strengthen their scientific goals and training of Rowan students. At the moment there is no confocal microscope at the College of Science & Mathematics (CSM), and accessibility to such an instrument is limited to our science faculty and students at Rowan. Therefore, with the acquisition of the Andor Dragonfly 201, we plan to create an imaging core facility in our science building with the confocal microscope as the centerpiece where Rowan NIH-funded and other investigators can have wide access to this instrumentation. The Andor Dragonfly 201 is a high-speed spinning multipoint confocal scanner that will be equipped with four multi-lasers (405nm/521nm/594nm/698nm), the BorealisTM illumination system, and the potent Zyla 4.2 PLUS detector that will result in high sensitivity and low photobleaching 3D imaging. The system will also include a Leica DMi8 inverted microscope equipped with a fully motorized XY scanning stage and 4 emission filters to allow investigators to perform 3 to 4 color labeling experiments at once. The Dragonfly 201 system also includes a workstation equipped with the Fusion and IMARIS software not only for the acquisition and visualization of the 3D images, but to allow real-time viewing of the optical sections, add resolution enhancement during capture using the ClearView-GPUTM Deconvolution algorithm, and stitch image tiles immediately after adjacent fields of view are captured. The Fusion stitcher leads to perfectly tiled montages of 3D images with excellent uniformity, resolution, and without the showing of frame boundaries. NIH-funded research projects to be supported by this instrument include: (1) Molecular basis and contribution of chromatin architecture to spermatogenesis; (2) Cellular & molecular mechanisms associated with Purkinje cell development and neurodegeneration; (3) Effects of experimental interventions on neuroinflammation in models of substance abuse; (4) Neural circuitry pathogenesis associated with deficits in behavioral flexibility in models of substance abuse and Alzheimer’s disease; (5) Identifying and targeting chemical signals involved in bacterial biofilm formation. Other projects will use this confocal technology to determine the contribution of cell adhesion molecules to viral entry and breast cancer, and to monitor the fate and efficacy of Silicon quantum dots as dual-mode targeted contrast agents in cells and tissues. Overall, the acquisition of the Andor Dragonfly 201 will strongly advance the research goals of investigators and students in the CSM at Rowan and contribute to the ongoing growth in biomedical research that Rowan University is experiencing. 1