MRI: Acquisition of a Zeiss PALM Microscope for Molecular and Microbiological Research

该奖项为购买PALM显微镜提供资金，该显微镜能够对单个细胞和组织切片进行操作，并从复杂的细胞和组织混合物中进行亚采样。该显微镜有两个主要特点：“激光光镊”允许细胞移动和彼此分离，“显微解剖”功能允许细胞和组织被切割和分离，用于下游分析。该仪器将成为一个共享的跨学科设施的核心，为加州大学欧文分校（UCI）和南加州其他地区的研究人员提供服务。除了作为研究中心的重要作用外，该设施还将用于培训研究生和本科生，并将支持来自科学领域代表性不足群体的当地学龄学生的科学推广。PALM显微镜将对海洋和其他环境研究、培训和教学产生强烈的积极影响。显微镜将提供一个核心设施，研究人员可以在其中进行合作，教师可以为学生提供动手使用尖端仪器的机会，为研究生和本科生提供真实的研究体验。加州大学洛杉矶分校每年有超过一半的新生是家庭中第一个上大学的人，其中大多数来自少数族裔；因此，加强海洋和环境研究和教学支持南加州多样化的学习者社区。具体的更广泛的影响计划包括：(1)直接培训学生研究人员，以支持UCI开展先进的跨学科研究的承诺；(2)通过将显微镜纳入UCI的“水生野外方法”课程，为UCI本科生提供实地研究的热情和真实的研究体验。(3)通过UCI实验室实验和物理科学活动（LEAPS）计划激发当地社区学校年轻学习者的好奇心和热情，该计划为来自文化多样化的圣安娜学区的中学生组织参观和实践活动。LEAPS教育计划将包括核心海洋学课程、以研究为导向的小型讲座、示范和实验室参观。学生将使用真实数据来练习绘图技术，并将通过完成一个混合媒体艺术项目来探索显微镜照片的美，该项目的灵感来自于他们使用PALM查看的标本。PALM显微镜将实现精细操作，显微解剖，细胞和组织切片取样，使研究人员能够在单细胞水平上应用最新的分子和微生物技术。该仪器将支持的研究分为两大类：(1)使用光学激光镊子对具有相似特征的单个细胞或细胞群进行分类和分离的研究，然后通过显微解剖收集；(2)通过激光显微解剖寻求切除组织或生物膜切片的研究。例如，从环境样品中的混合细胞组合中分选表达特定酶的单个浮游植物细胞，从完整标本中切除具有特定特征的真菌组织切片。PALM设施将支持的所有项目的共同主题是，显微镜非常精细的分辨率和分选能力将允许通过对感兴趣的细胞或组织切片进行磨光来回答更详细和机械的问题。这将使研究人员能够将尖端的分子技术应用于具有已知表型/生理特征的非常精确的样品上，这种能力迄今无法用于这些类型的复杂混合环境样品，这些样品对于细胞分拣器来说太大，而对于传统的解剖显微镜来说又太小。

This award funds the acquisition of a PALM microscope that enables individual cells and tissue sections to be manipulated and sub-sampled from complex mixtures of cells and tissues. The microscope has two main features: the "laser optical tweezers" allow cells to be moved and separated from one another, and the "microdissection" feature allows cells and tissues to be cut out and isolated for downstream analyses. The instrument will form the core of a shared, interdisciplinary facility that serves researchers at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and others in southern California. In addition to its vital role as a research hub, the facility will be used to train graduate and undergraduate students, and will support science outreach for local school-aged students from underrepresented groups in the sciences. The PALM microscope will have a strong positive impact on marine and other environmental research, training, and teaching. The microscope will provide a core facility in which researchers can collaborate, and where instructors can offer students hands-on access to a cutting edge instrument to provide authentic research experiences to graduate students and undergraduates. Over half of the incoming undergraduates at UCI each year are the first in their families to attend college, and the majority are from underrepresented minority groups; hence, strengthening marine and environmental research and teaching supports a diverse community of learners in southern California. The specific broader impacts plan includes (1) direct training of student researchers to support UCI's commitment to conducting progressive interdisciplinary research, (2) generating passion for field research and providing authentic research experiences for UCI undergraduates through the microscope's incorporation into an "Aquatic Field Methods" course at UCI, and (3) inspiring curiosity and enthusiasm in young learners in local community schools via the UCI Laboratory Experiments and Activities in the Physical Sciences (LEAPS) Program, which organizes visits and hands-on-activities for middle school students from the culturally diverse Santa Ana school district. The LEAPS educational program will include core oceanography curriculum, feature research-oriented mini-lectures, demonstrations, and a laboratory tour. Students will work with real data to practice graphing techniques and will explore the beauty of microscopy photographs by completing a mixed media art project inspired by specimens they view using the PALM.The PALM microscope will enable fine scale manipulation, microdissection, and sampling of cells and tissue sections, enabling researchers to apply the newest molecular and microbiological techniques at the single-cell level. Research that will be supported by the instrument fall into two broad categories: (1) research that sorts and separates single cells or groups of cells with similar characteristics using optical laser tweezers followed by collection via microdissection, and (2) research that seeks to excise tissue or biofilm sections via laser microdissection. Examples include sorting individual phytoplankton cells that express a particular enzyme from mixed assemblages of cells in environmental samples, to excising fungal tissue sections with specific traits from intact specimen. The common theme of all the projects the PALM facility will support is that the very fine scale resolution and sorting capabilities of the microscope will allow more detailed and mechanistic questions to be answered by honing in on cells or tissue sections of interest. This will enable researchers to apply cutting edge molecular techniques on very precise samples with known phenotypic/physiological characteristics, an ability heretofore unavailable for these types of complex, mixed environmental samples that are too large for cell sorters and too small for traditional dissecting microscopes.