Facility Details

The facility provides state of the art imaging instrumentation and analysis software along with training and expertise to ensure their proper and efficient use. Instrumentation and technologies available to users include: (i) Zeiss LSM800 AIRYSCAN confocal microscope, a point scanning confocal system with high sensitivity GaAsP detectors allows confocal imaging of live cells, fixed cells, and tissues. It has full stage environmental control (temperature, gas and humidity) and autofocus, allowing long time lapse experiments of live cells. The Airyscan 32-detector array allows super resolution imaging. The system is integrated by Zen software allowing 3-D reconstruction, co-localization, deconvolution and image tiling. (ii) PerkinElmer / Akoya Vectra 3.0 Automated Quantitative Pathology Imaging System is a brightfield and fluorescence whole slide scanner with multi-spectral acquisition and spectral unmixing capabilities, allows highly multiplexed biomarker imaging on tissues sections and cells. (iii) Agilent/BioTek Cytation 5 with BioSpa8 live-cell microscopy system for fluorescence and phase contrast microscopy suitable for high throughput and long-term studies of cell-cell interaction, cell proliferation, survival and migration. The system enables time-lapsed images and kinetic measurements from living cells over many days with up to eigth multi-well plates imaged independently. (iv) Olympus IX-83 ZDC2 microscope equipped with a PRIMO UV light-based bioengineering device for micropatterning and microfabrication. (v) Olympus IX73 Inverted Fluorescence Microscope: has a wide assortment of fluorescence filters and objectives allowing high quality image capture of slides/multi-well plates using immunohistochemistry (IHC) or fluorescence readily is achieved. Image analysis software hosted on appropriately powered workstations with cloud connectivity for high capacity storage provided by Dartmouth College: HALO3, Inform, Volocity, AutoDeblur, Image-J / Fiji.

The shared resource also provides state of the art instrumentation for transmission and scanning electron microscopy, housed in the Dartmouth Electron Microscopy Facility (director M. Guinel, PhD). Instrumentation avaiable: (vii) FEI Talos F200i (200kV TEM and STEM electron microscope (TEM), equipped for micro-analysis, and cryo-EM.
(viii) FEI Helios CX5 dual beam FIB-SEM system allowing high resolution electron and ion beam imaging, ion beam milling and automated imaging of biological samples for 3D reconstruction. The system is also equipped with three X-ray microanalysis detectors allowing elemental analysis of the specimens. The facility has instruments for specimen preparation for transmission and scanning electron microscopy including ultramicrotomes (Leica Ultracut UC6 and UC7), critical point dryer (Samdri-970), Leica ACE 600 coater and ThermoFisher Vitrobot..