Dynamics of Fundamental Cellular Processes by Live Cell and Tissue Imaging

在过去的十年中，成像在生物和生物医学科学中的应用经历了一场革命。最重要的进展之一是定量成像系统的可用性，该系统可用于测量活状态下细胞和组织的结构和动力学。在过去的五年中，出现了一些新技术，可以实现“超分辨率”，即可以看到的物体的大小限制，以前被认为是科学发现的不可逾越的障碍，已经被打破，为探索和发现提供了新的机会。在邓迪，我们经营着英国最大的光学显微镜设施之一，为我们自己和许多来访的生物科学家提供18种不同的系统和许多不同的技术。此应用程序请求支持2个新成像系统。首先是对现有平台OMX显微镜的升级，该平台使用一种称为“结构照明显微镜”的技术实现超分辨率。我们已经运行我们的OMX作为一个国家资源和系统一直非常受欢迎- 50%的使用是专门为外部用户，我们已经接待了来自英国和欧洲各地的19个不同机构的科学家。我们希望扩展OMX的超分辨率功能，以观察活体样本，从而进一步了解细胞动力学中的基本问题。我们还要求资金用于第二台显微镜，即一种新技术的光片荧光显微镜（“LSFM”）。LSFM对于长期时间段和检查组织中细胞的特性特别有吸引力。我们想要建造的LSFM还可以实现超分辨率活细胞成像，使用一种称为贝塞尔光束的特殊照明技术，由现在参与该项目的邓迪的物理学家开发。凭借我们在运行先进成像系统并将其提供给更广泛的社区方面的成熟专业知识，我们相信这些新系统将使科学跨越广泛的应用，从单细胞的最基本研究到胚胎的发育以及癌症如何作为一种疾病工作。

The use of imaging in the biological and biomedical sciences has undergone a revolution in the last decade. One of the most important advances is the availability of quantitative imaging systems that can be used to measure the structure and dynamics of cells and tissues in the living state. In the last 5 years a number of new techniques have appeared that enable "super-resolution", where limits on the size of objects that can be seen, previously thought to form impassable barriers to scientific discovery, have been broken, enabling new opportunities for exploration and discovery. At Dundee we run one of the UK's largest light microscopy facilities delivering 18 different systems and a number of different technologies to our own and many visiting biological scientists. This application requests support for 2 new imaging systems. The first is an upgrade of an existing platform-- the OMX microscope-- that achieves super-resolution using a technique called 'structured illumination microscopy'. We have run our OMX as a national resource and the system has been extremely popular - 50% usage is dedicated to external users, and we have hosted scientists from 19 different institutions from all over the UK and Europe. We want to extend OMX's super-resolution capabilities to look at live samples to further understand fundamental questions in cellular dynamics. We are also requesting funds for a second microscope, a light sheet florescence microscope ("LSFM") that is a new technology. LSFM is particularly attractive for long-term time laps and for examining the properties of cells in tissues. The LSFM we want to build also enables super resolution live cell imaging, using a special illumination technique called a Bessel beam, developed by physicists now based at Dundee who are participating in this project. With our established expertise in running advanced imaging systems and making them available to the wider community, we are sure these new systems will enable science across a broad range of applications, from the most basic studies of single-celled to the development of embryos and how cancer works as a disease.