The Dynamic Embryo Imaging Platform

了解细胞及其组成部分的生物学一直是生命科学和医学的关键目标。显微镜的进步正在深刻地改变细胞、亚细胞结构和组织的研究方式。对于像UCL这样的研究密集型机构来说，要保持生物医学科学的竞争力，采用变革性成像技术至关重要。进一步了解健康和疾病需要深入了解细胞，其成分及其在生命早期阶段的发展。如何成像完整的，大规模的，活的有机体在高的空间和时间分辨率与多个荧光团/记者没有光毒性或光漂白与合适的灵敏度，以捕捉低信号强度的检测器仍然是一个关键的挑战。伦敦大学学院作为生物科学/生物医学发现的关键贡献者的国际声誉在一定程度上是成功的，因为它一直致力于通过资本和资源的投资成为新的变革性技术的早期采用者。实现这一目标的一个主要途径是随着时间的推移对细胞的行为和功能特性进行成像。这必须使用能够以非常高的速度捕获具有足够精细细节的图像的设备来完成，以便能够发现和研究迄今为止未知的动态过程。光片成像技术特别适合于研究胚胎发生过程中的关键事件，特别是快速细胞事件，部分原因是它能够扫描活体组织并以高速构建发育生物体的三维图像。先进的光学技术，如光片显微镜允许这样的动态研究，同时也允许研究人员操纵细胞功能。这项技术的增加，以UCL核心成像教师将使研究人员获得的能力，如：a）快速特征跟踪，以研究细胞内过程、细胞迁移和胚胎发育。B）解决与其他成像技术相关的光学散射问题，并允许成像深入厚样品。c）细胞信号事件的快速图像捕获，如钙成像，深入整个胚胎区域，如CNS。d）检测活组织和整个生物体（如斑马鱼胚胎）中细胞内和细胞间的分子相互作用事件。UCL的研究小组，其重点是胚胎发育的各个方面，试图阐明生物体发育和健康疾病的基本过程和关键事件/因素。他们代表了UCL的一些主要研究人员，他们的研究得到了BBSRC，MRC，CRUK和Wellcome Trust赠款的广泛支持。此外，显微镜将可用于大量不同的研究项目，解决与胚胎发育，细胞生物学和神经生物学有关的许多悬而未决的问题。所要求的资金将使我们能够获得领先的光片显微镜之一，这将大大提高我们的研究能力，并导致新的科学发现。

Understanding the biology of the cell and its component parts has always been the key goal in life science and medicine. Advances in microscopy are profoundly changing the way cells, sub-cellular structures and tissues can be studied. For a research intensive institution, such as UCL, to remain a competitive leader in biomedical sciences, it is essential to adopt transformative imaging technologies. Furthering our understanding of health and diseases requires a deep knowledge of the cell, its constituents and their development from very early stages of life. How to image intact, large-scale, live organisms at high spatial and temporal resolution with multiple fluorophores/reporters without phototoxcity or photobleaching with detectors of suitable sensitivity to capture low signal intensity remains a key challenge. UCL's international reputation as a key contributor in bioscience/biomedical discoveries has, in part, been successful because of it's sustained commitment to be an early adopter of new, transformative technologies, by investment of capital and resources. One main path toward this goal is to image the behavior and functional properties of cells over time. This must be done with equipment that is capable of capturing images with sufficient fine detail and at very high speed so that, hitherto, unknown dynamic processes can be discovered and studied. Lightsheet imaging technology is particularly suited to the study of key events during embryogenesis, especially fast cellular events, in part because of its ability to scan through living tissue and construct three-dimensional images of developing organisms at high speed. Advanced optical techniques, such as lightsheet microscopy allow for such dynamic studies while also allowing researchers to manipulate cellular functions. The addition of this technology to UCL core Imaging faculty will give researches access to capabilities such as:a) Rapid feature tracking to study intracellular process, cell migration and embryo development.b) Address optical scattering problems that are associated with other imaging techniques and allow imaging deep into thick samples.c) Rapid image capture of cell signalling events such as calcium imaging, deep into whole embryos regions such as the CNSd) To detect molecular interaction events within and between cells in live tissues and whole organisms such as zebra fish embryos.The main co-applicants on this proposal are, therefore, research groups at UCL whose focus is on aspects of embryo development trying to elucidate the fundamental processes and key events/factors that underlie organismal development and in health disease. They represent some of the major research figures at UCL, whose research is extensively supported through BBSRC, MRC, CRUK and Wellcome Trust grants. In addition, the microscope will be accessible to a large number of diverse research projects addressing many outstanding questions relating to embryonic development, cell biology and neurobiology. The requested funds will enable us to obtain a one of the leading Lightsheet microscope that will significantly enhance our research capabilities and lead to new scientific discoveries.