Multi-purpose Transmission Electron Microscope for Wolfson Bioimaging Facility

生物成像是通过显微镜对细胞、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特殊保存的细胞和组织中获得纳米级的细胞成分结构信息，并在通过特殊冷冻技术保存的分离蛋白质中获得原子水平的结构信息。透射式电子显微镜是一种广泛应用于生物和生物医学领域的技术，它通过探测电子束穿过材料后形成图像。布里斯托尔大学拥有一家领先的生物成像设施，其TEM与专门设计的光学显微镜一起安装，这些显微镜旨在定位细胞和组织中的荧光分子。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类型的显微镜的优势，通过光学显微镜探索细胞动力学，然后通过电子显微镜对细胞结构进行精细分辨。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来了解细胞和蛋白质的3D结构。综合起来，这些技术支持了广泛的研究活动，以理解和利用生命规则。不幸的是，这种仪器随着年龄的增长变得不可靠，典型的寿命约为15年。我们使用非常频繁的仪器已经有15年的历史，近几个月来变得越来越不可靠，制造商不再提供支持，无法将它们保持在足够可靠的状态，以使我们用户的研究能够有效地进行。出于这些原因，我们正在寻求资金，用一台能够支持布里斯托尔大学、邻近大学和我们日益增长的依赖这一重要生物成像技术的外部用户群的广泛研究项目的单一多用途仪器来取代我们目前的2台透射电子显微镜仪器。

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.