ONI Nanoimager benchtop single molecule fluorescence and STORM imager LMB 2022/05

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Biological processes happen on many length scales. As humans, we can study ourselves at many levels, the whole body, organs, single cells or even right down to the level of specific molecular interactions. In the case of disease it is often necessary to study a process at this molecular level. A drug itself is a molecule designed to interact with a few other specific molecules within our bodies with the intent to stop or reverse a disease process. With this in mind, it is important that scientists have tools that allow them to peer into biological processes in extremely fine detail.One such tool is the light microscope. Light microscopy has a long history of giving insight into biological processes and disease processes that cannot be seen with the naked eye. However light microscopy has limits. We cannot observe life at much below the single cell level. Bacteria are for example are only just visible in even the best light microscopes. Disease causing viruses are in general too small to be seen at all. In recent years a solution to this problem has been found. We are now able to observe detail ten times or even one hundred times finer than previously possible. The trick used to do this is to highlight a molecule in a very specific manner such that it is now detectable in a light microscope. In other aspects the microscope is no different to those in use for a hundred years. Using the latest and most sensitive microscope cameras it is possible to locate that highlighted molecule with unprecedented precision. This in turn means we can establish relation ships betwen highlighted molecules on lenght scales only a few time bigger than the molecule itself. Broadly speaking this novel light microscopy method is known as superresolution microscopy. With this grant application to buy a super resolution microscope, we seek to purchase an instrument that lets us image interactions between multiple different molecule types, each highlighted in a different colour. Our goal is to understand fundamental biological processes and interactions at the molecular level. The intent is that such information gained can provide new insight into disease processes and later lead to the invention of new theraputic strategies.