Upgrade to embryo microsurgery and imaging system

我的研究计划的持续目标是提高我们对细胞力学的认识。具体来说，我们努力了解亚细胞结构成分产生的力如何最终导致胚胎正常发育和伤口愈合过程中细胞群的自我重组。我的团队在过去四年里建立了一个强大的胚胎显微手术和成像系统，使我们能够了解大量关于胚胎细胞的机制。我们和其他人最近进行的实验表明，如果对这个价值30万美元的系统进行3.8万美元以下的改进，我们将能够测量单个细胞中起作用的力，这是以前从未做过的事情。为了实现这一令人兴奋的机会，需要对系统的硬件和软件进行三方面的改进：1)需要一组高数值孔径（NA）物镜，以减少相机快门时间并更快地采集图像；2)需要一种新型纳米聚焦压电物镜聚焦驱动器，以使物镜能够准确快速地定位。3)需要反褶积软件去除光学畸变等因素造成的图像“模糊”。由于这些组件被添加到现有系统中，因此可以以适度的成本实现重要的新功能。这些改进将使研究细胞力学的强有力的新方法成为可能，并将导致基本的新知识。我们期待这一新知识将导致我们对胚胎发育、伤口愈合、癌症转移和组织工程的理解取得重要进展。

The ongoing objective of my research program is to advance our knowledge of cell mechanics. Specifically, we strive to understand how forces generated by sub-cellular structural components ultimately cause groups of cells to reorganize themselves in embryos during normal development and wound healing.A powerful Embryo Microsurgery and Imaging System that my team built during the last four years has enabled us to learn a great deal about the mechanics of embryonic cells. Recent experiments carried out by us and by others show that if enhancements costing just under $38,000 are made to this $300,000 system, we will be able to measure the forces at work in individual cells, something that has not been done before.To realize this exciting opportunity three enhancements are required to the system hardware and software:   1) a set of high numerical aperture (NA) objective lenses are required so that camera shutter times can be reduced and images collected more rapidly, 2) a new nanofocusing piezoelectric objective focusing drive is needed so that the objective lens can be positioned accurately and quickly, and 3) deconvolution software is needed to remove image "blur" caused by optical distortions and other factors. Because these components are being added to an existing system, important new capabilities can be realized at a modest cost.These enhancements will make possible a powerful new approach for investigating the mechanics of cells and will lead to fundamental new knowledge. We anticipate that this new knowledge will lead to important advances in our understanding of embryo development, wound healing, cancer metastases and tissue engineering.