Multi-purpose Transmission Electron Microscope for Wolfson Bioimaging Facility

生物成像，即通过显微镜对细胞、组织和生物体进行研究，是生命科学研究中的一项关键技术。电子显微镜使科学家能够在纳米尺度上获得特殊保存的细胞和组织的结构信息，以及在原子水平上通过特殊冷冻技术保存的分离蛋白质的结构信息。透射电子显微镜（TEM）是一种通过检测电子束穿过材料后形成图像的技术，在生物学和生物医学的许多领域都有广泛的应用。布里斯托尔大学拥有领先的生物成像设备，其中包括专门用于定位细胞和组织内荧光分子的专用光学显微镜。布里斯托尔的研究人员和来自其他大学和商业公司的参观者利用这两种显微镜的优势，通过光学显微镜探索细胞动力学，然后通过透射电镜观察细胞结构的精细分辨率。我们的研究人员也越来越多地使用专门的电子显微镜技术学习细胞和蛋白质的3D结构。总之，这些技术支持了广泛的研究活动，以理解和利用生命的规则。不幸的是，这样的仪器变得不可靠，因为他们的年龄和典型的寿命是~15年。我们大量使用的仪器已经使用了15年，最近几个月变得越来越不可靠，制造商不再提供支持，以保持它们处于足够可靠的状态，从而能够有效地进行我们用户的研究。出于这些原因，我们正在寻求资金，用一台多用途仪器取代我们目前的2台TEM仪器，该仪器能够支持布里斯托尔大学、邻近大学和我们日益增长的外部用户群对这一重要生物成像技术的广泛研究项目。

Bioimaging, the investigation of cells, tissues and organisms by microscopy, is a key technology in life science research. Electron microscopes enable scientists to get structural information about cell components at nanometre scale in specially preserved cells and tissues, and at atom-level in isolated proteins preserved by specialised freezing techniques. A transmission electron microscope (TEM) forms images by detecting electron beam after it passes through material and is a widely used technique in many fields of biology and biomedicine. The University of Bristol has a leading bioimaging facility with TEMs housed alongside specialised light microscopes that are designed to locate fluorescent molecules inside cells and tissues. Bristol's researchers and visitors from other universities and commercial companies exploit the advantages of both types of microscope to explore cellular dynamics by light microscopy, then fine resolution of cell architecture by TEM. Increasingly our researchers are also learning about 3D architecture of cells and proteins using specialised electron microscopy techniques. Together, these techniques support a wide range of research activities to understand and exploit the rules of life. Unfortunately, such instruments become unreliable as they age and the typical lifespan is ~15 years. Our very heavily used instruments are already 15 years old, have become increasingly unreliable in recent months and support is no longer available from the manufacturer to maintain them in sufficiently reliable state to enable efficient progress of our users' research. For these reasons, we are seeking funds to replace our current 2 TEM instruments with a single multi-purpose instrument capable of supporting a broad range of research projects in Bristol University, neighbouring universities and our growing external user base reliant on this important bioimaging technique.