The mission of the MDIBL Light Microscopy Facility (LMF) is to provide professional scientific expertise in light microscopy. Our microscopes are available 24/7 to scientists at MDIBL and the Maine INBRE network and their collaborators, as well to summer students and visiting scientists to help them answer their research questions.

We offer access to cutting-edge hardware and software as well as expert guidance at any step of imaging project, from experimental design to image analysis, to provide the best service possible for our users.

LMF MDIBL comprises eight microscope systems. Two laser scanning confocal microscopes: one Olympus inverted confocal microscope system (FV1000) and one Zeiss inverted confocal microscope system (LSM-980) equipped with Airy scan 2 for super resolution and 2-photon technology for in-vivo deep imaging with a temperature controlled chamber. One spinning disk confocal: a Nikon inverted spinning disk microscope system with an incubation chamber (Eclipse Ti with Yokogawa disk CSU-W1).

The facility counts also two Zeiss widefield microscopes for brightfield and epifluorescence illumination (Zeiss Apotome and Zeiss Colibri).

In addition, the LMF MDIBL comprises three macroscopes systems / zoom microscopes to observe large samples or complete model organisms in brightfield and epifluorescence: one Olympus stereomicroscope system (MVX10) and two Zeiss stereomicroscope systems (SteREO Discovery V12), fully automated and one AxioZoom V16 , fully automated with an ApoTome attachment).

The MDI Biological Laboratory (MDIBL) Bioinformatics Core works highly collaboratively with faculty to provide essential data management, computational infrastructure and analysis services to advance research programs. The Core uses state-of-the-art analysis workflows and incorporates new analysis tools as they become available. Core staff have specialized expertise in the analysis of microRNAs and high-throughput sequence data. Computational infrastructure includes a 48-core Linux cluster that hosts high-throughput sequence data analysis software, two large memory analysis servers that host the CLCBio Genomics Workbench software and a Decypher FPGA co-processor board that have >100TB of usable storage housed in the MDIBL Data Center. The Core provides access to commercial analysis software and resources, such as Sequencher and Ingenuity Pathways Analysis. In addition to these services, the Core is constructing a database resource for faculty to provide a systems-level view of regenerative biology and stem cell self-renewal. The Comparative Models of Regeneration Database (RegenDB) integrates faculty-generated gene function data with published studies selected by faculty from a number of comparative models. In summary, the Core provides computational infrastructure and expertise in bioinformatic analysis that faculty need to accomplish their research goals.

The MDI Biological Laboratory is an independent, not-for-profit marine and biomedical research facility and an international center for comparative physiology, toxicology and regenerative biology studies.