Stimulated Emission Depletion Microscopy (STED) for imaging at high resolution in the Biosciences

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To find out how proteins are organised within cells and tissues, and how they interact with each other, we need to be able to see inside the cell with a high level of detail. Unfortunately, because of the way light microscopes work, the amount of detail we can normally see is limited. In this proposal, we want to set up a new type of microscope, that overcomes some of the shortcomings of traditional light microscopes, and will allow us to see much more detail, turning a blurry image into a much sharper one. Normally, we can only resolve two objects in a cell if they are more than 250 nanometers apart. This new microscope will allow us to resolve two objects in a cell that are more than ~30 to 40 nm apart, increasing the amount of detail we can see by about 10 fold. This will enable us to find the answers to important questions about how the cytoskeleton is organised in different types of cell, how it adopts a specialised organisation in primary cilia (small antennae like structures on the cell surface), how viruses replicate inside cells, how membrane proteins are organised on the surfaces of cells, how proteins are organised in heart muscle cells, and so on. This new microscope will bring a step change to our imaging capabilities, and the new level of detail that we'll be able to see will underpin a wide range of biological and health related research.