Andor are bringing their Revolution spinning disk instrument to QBI for demonstration on Monday 20th to Thursday 30th of May. 

Geraint Wilde, the Andor Revolution application specialist, will be presenting on Monday 20th at 11am in the QBI Auditorium to introduce the capabilties of this instrument. The Andor revolution instrument is designed for very high speed confocal imaging with low phototoxicity – especially suited to:

• live cell dynamics and protein trafficking
• calcium imaging
• imaging model organisms
• rapid imaging of fixed and live samples such as 3D mosaics

To organise time on the instrument while it is here please contact l.hammond@uq.edu.au

http://www.andor.com/microscopy-systems/revolution

3i Spinning Disk April Demonstration

Special thanks to 3i (intelligent imaging innovations) for bringing out their spinning disk instrument to QBI for demonstration in April. The data generated during this time is now available on the server and includes large tissue montages and overnight 4D imaging of neuronal development.

Zeiss LightSheet Microscope Demonstration

Zeiss are bring their new Lightsheet microscope to UQ next week.

Workshops will take place at The Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), Building 80, The University of Queensland, from 6th – 17th of May. Both morning and afternoon sessions are available. RSVP today to reserve your place.

http://microscopy.zeiss.com/microscopy/en_de/products/imaging-systems/lightsheet-z-1.html#inpagetabs-0

Light Sheet YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTcsRl8bTgI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXzVvcDn5eE

Workshop Registration
http://microscopy.zeiss.com/microscopy/en_au/dynamic-content/training-and-education/light-microscopy-courses/lightsheet-z-1-workshops-australia.html

New Methods Available on the Microscopy Website

1. Guide to FLIM Imaging

2. Immunohistochemistry and Biocytin Recovery in Insect Brains

3. Whole Mount Immunohistochemistry for Insect Brains

Recent Publications from QBI using the Microscopy Facility

Calcagno, B., Eyles, D., van Alphen, B. & van Swinderen, B. (2013) Transient activation of dopaminergic neurons during development modulates visual responsiveness, locomotion and brain activity in a dopamine ontogeny model of schizophrenia. Translational Psychiatry 2: e2026.

Fothergill, T., Donahoo, A.-L. S., Douglass, A., Zalucki, O., Yuan, J., Shu, T., Goodhill, G. J. & Richards, L. J. (2013) Netrin-DCC signaling regulates corpus callosum formation through attraction of pioneering axons and by modulating Slit2-mediated repulsion. Cerebral Cortex [Epub ahead of print].

Kirszenblat, L., Neumann, B., Coakley, S. & Hilliard, M. A. (2012) A dominant mutation in MEC-7/β-tubulin affects axon development and regeneration in C. elegans neurons. Molecular Biology of the Cell [Epub ahead of print].

Kottler, B., Bao, H., Zalucki, O., Imlach, W., Troup, M., van Alphen, B., Paulk, A., Zhang, B. & van Swinderen, B. (2013) A sleep/wake circuit controls isoflurane sensitivity in Drosophila. Current Biology 23(7): 594–598.

Martin, S., Harper, C. B. ˢ., May, L. M., Coulson, E. J., Meunier, F. A. & Osborne, S. L. (2013) Inhibition of PIKfyve by YM-201636 dysregulates autophagy and leads to apoptosis-independent neuronal cell death. PLoS ONE 8(3): e60152.

Yuan, J.,Chan, S., Mortimer, D., Nguyen, H. & Goodhill, G. J. (2013) Optimality and saturation in axonal chemotaxis. Neural Computation 25(4): 833-853.

Vukovic, J., Borlikova, G. G., Ruitenberg, M. J., Robinson, G. J., Sullivan, R. K., Walker, T. L. & Bartlett, P. F. (2013) Immature doublecortin-positive hippocampal neurons are important for learning but not for remembering. Journal of Neuroscience 33(15): 6603-6613.

Karl Kilborn, Co-President of Intelligent Imaging Innovations, will be visiting QBI next week to upgrade our high-speed TIRF/FRET imaging system with a new state-of-the-art FLIM (Fluorescence-Lifetime Imaging Microscopy) module and an additional 405nm laser to enable super-resolution experiments.

By Wednesday we expect to be ready for internal testing, leaving Thursday and Friday open to interested groups to spend some time with Karl on the instrument and ask application specific questions.

Karl will also be holding a seminar in the QBI level 7 Seminar room at 2pm on Thursday 13th of December – this talk will cover the FLIM technology and its applications as well as some further information on multi-photon imaging.

If you are interested in spending some time on the instrument and receiving training from Karl please let me know your availability for Thursday and Friday and I will organise a time (l.hammond@uq.edu.au).

For more information on FLIM - http://www.microscopyu.com/references/flim.html

Thank-you to all those who attended and spoke at the 2012 Advanced Microscopy Forum and made it such a successful afternoon!

Next week Perkin Elmer will be presenting their Nuance Camera Techonology at QBI.

Mark Dupal will be presenting on Tuesday 4th of Decemember in the QBI Auditorium from 11am – 12pm - all are welcome to attend.

The nuance camera allows for complete spectral detection making it possible to discriminate between dyes and autofluorescence – even when the two are almost identical. This has huge advantages for tissue imaging, especially in brains, where autofluorescence is often problematic.

Following on from this talk the Nuance camera will be available at QBI for the remainder of the week (4th – 7th) so that everyone is able to test its applications for their research.

–Nuance Brochure–

If you would like to organise some time on the Nuance instrument (4th-7th December) please contact me (l.hammond@uq.edu.au)

Next Thursday, the 22nd of November, QBI will be hosting an array of talks on advanced microscopy related to ongoing research in SBMS and QBI. Each of these talks will include techniques pushing the limits on what is presently possible in microscopy – from large scale fluorescent tissue imaging and analysis,  methods for automated analysis of 12GB images and three talks focused on super-resolution microscopy.

All are welcome to attend.

The afternoon has been generously sponsored by Life Technologies – who will be providing drinks at the conclusion of the talks.

For more information and to RSVP please contact Luke Hammond – l.hammond@uq.edu.au

Life Technologies and Molecular Probes

Molecular Probes® is the leading provider of novel fluorescent and chemiluminescent reagents that advance scientific and biomedical research worldwide. Over the last 30 years, our industry-leading portfolio has become the most peer referenced fluorescent and chemiluminescent products in life science research. Whether the application is imaging, flow cytometry or plate reader-based, Molecular Probes® labeling and detection products are designed to support your research needs.

Image description attached: Immunocytochemistry analysis of U2OS cells stained with Metadherin (C-term) (LYRIC), Rabbit pAb (21HCLC), ABfinity™ Recombinant Oligoclonal Antibody, using a: Alexa Fluor®488 goat anti-rabbit was used as secondary (green). b: DAPI was used to stain the nucleus (blue) and c: Alexa Fluor® 594 wheat germ agglutinin was used to stain glycoconjugates on cell membrane (red). d: Composite image of cells showing nuclear localization of Metadherin.

QBI will be hosting Jason Swedlow when he visits UQ on Wednesday November 7th. Jason is a brilliant and highly regarded cell biologist and microscopist (for more information on his research visit here and here). He is also the cofounder of OME, which produces OMERO, an open source image databasing tool with huge potential to address how imaging research is managed and stored.

We will be hosting a small discussion regarding OMERO with Jason at QBI in the level 7 Seminar room between 2 – 3pm.

If you would like to meet Jason while he visits QBI please get in touch with me (l.hammond@uq.edu.au).

Coincidently, as part of a series of microscopy seminars running on Thursday November 8th Jake and I will be discussing OMERO and its implementation here at QBI. Further details of this event will be announced next week.

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As part of increasing awareness of super resolution techniques further information has  been added to the website.

This includes information on Structured Illumination Microscopy (SIM) and Single Molecule Localisation (which includes STORM and PALM).

Super resolution Optical Fluctuation Imaging (SOFI) is also covered. Developed by Shimon Weiss, this algorithmic technique has the potential to turn any wide field microscope into a super-resolution instrument… with no additional hardware.

Pages also cover probes suitable for single molecule localisation, software for image reconstruction and key papers.