A facility for 3D cellular imaging that bridges light and electron microscopy

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In biology, seeing is believing. To find out what is happening inside cells, biologists use microscopes. This equipment comes in different varieties. The two main microscopes biologists use are light microscopes and electron microscopes. With light microscopes, we can image living cells and watch many different proteins going about their job. Using electron microscopes, we can image much smaller things, however, we can only look at fixed (dead) cells and also seeing proteins is difficult. This money from the BBSRC will help us to buy two of the very latest microscopes. We will put these microscopes together with other machines to make it possible for scientists to see living cells and proteins and then see the same cell and the same proteins in the electron microscope. The special thing about these new microscopes is that they can take pictures and movies in 3D, so we can get all the information out of the cells that we are looking at. The equipment will be based at University of Warwick. We have lots of biologists at our University who need these instruments to carry out important research on bacteria, plants and animals, to understand neuroscience, cell division and plant signalling - to name just a few. We will open up the equipment so that other scientists based in the Midlands or even further afield can use it. These scientists may be Biologists or they may be Materials Scientists or Chemists working in Universities or in Industry.