Microscopy Facilities

The Core provides the following fluorescence microscopes for image capture and quantitative analysis.

A Zeiss 510 MetaHead confocal fluorescence microscope in inverted configuration suitable for glass slides and live cell work.
A wide-field inverted Nikon TE2000U fluorescence microscope fitted with 4x to 60x long working distance objectives with separate B&W fluorescence and colour video cameras to image both slides and cells in culture.
An Olympus BX-51 upright wide-field microscope for imaging samples on glass slides, suitable for mFISH analysis with Leica's Genus CytoVision software.
Image analysis and image processing PC workstations.

The Cellular Imaging Core is located on the ground floor, Laboratory 1, Room's 00/069 and 00/070. Only Core trained users have access to the microscopes in 00/070. The microscopes can be used by all Wellcome Centre staff, free of charge, once they have been trained by Core staff.

Email us for further details or for new user microscopy induction at cellular-imaging@well.ox.ac.uk. Telephone 01865 287568 [internal ext. 87568] for the Core laboratory 00/069. You must be on the Wellcome Trust Centre's intra-net for some links to work.

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The Core has a selection of microscope and stand-alone image analysis and processing PC workstations running Leica Cytovision, Nikon NIS Elements, IPLab, Molecular Devices MetaMorph v7.7 Premiere Offline version (includes object/cell tracking, colocalization and neurite-outgrowth applications), ImageJ and Perkin Elmer Volocity v6.1 4D deconvolution software (includes Quantitation, Visualization and Restoration modules).

In addition we have an Epson V200 flatbed scanner, a 3.1 mega-pixel Nikon CoolPix 995 compact digital camera, offering 2048 x 1536 image resolution and 4x optical zoom.

Live Cell Imaging

The Core's Zeiss LSM510 MetaHead confocal microscope is suitable for long-term live cell or tissue time-lapse imaging. The system consists of a Zeiss XL3 live cell incubator system and a motorised scanning XY stage installed on the confocal's inverted Axiovert 200M microscope. Culture/Labtek slides, Mattek glass bottomed Petri Dishes and Multiwell Plates can all be imaged on the confocal system. Click here for full details of the live cell incubator system.

The Leica CM-3050-S Cryostat

The Core has a top of the range Leica CM-3050-S cryostat for cutting sections from frozen tissue samples and cell suspensions. It's particularly suitable for working with delicate specimens such as brain samples in neuroscience. The precise specimen orientation and the feed system via it's step motor produces reproducible thin serial sections of high quality.