Links to External Web Sites
A few external websites of interest are listed below. For our recommended book list follow this Reading List link. As well as one to one in-house training and assistance by our Core staff for our specific imaging systems and software, Oxford University offer a variety of relevant Skills Training Courses, including an Advanced Light Microscopy Course.
FISH and Immunofluorescence
Book: 'Fluorescence in situ Hybridization (FISH)' J Bridger, E Volpi eds, 2010, 451 pages
www.springer.com/life+sciences
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute's Molecular Cytogenetics page
www.sanger.ac.uk/HGP/Cytogenetics
Tavi's Multicolor FISH Page, Yale University
info.med.yale.edu/genetics/ward/tavi/FISH.html
Gateway to the US Dept Energy's Genomic Website
genomics.energy.gov The genomic science program
www.ornl.gov/chromosomes Gene and Protein database on-line guide
Resources for Molecular Cytogenetics - Universita' di Bari, Italy
www.biologia.uniba.it/rmc
Comparative Genomics, Cambridge University Veterinary School
www.vet.cam.ac.uk/research/cytogenetics
ImmunoPortal.com for Immunohistochemistry & In Situ Hybridization
www.immunoportal.com
Wikipedia's entry for FISH & immunofluorescence
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_in_situ_hybridization
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunofluorescence
Leica's [formerly Genetix/Applied Imaging] Cytogenetics website - this is our Genus system
www.leica-microsystems.com/cytovision
Genetix was recently aquired by Leica Microsystems
Imaging Associates [IMAS], MetaSystems and Spectral Imaging's Cytogenetics website
www.metasystems-international.com M-FISH paints and molecular cytogenetics workstations
www.zeiss.co.uk Imaging Associates [IMAS]: Metasystems UK distributer
www.spectral-imaging.com Sky-FISH paints and molecular cytogenetics workstations
The Optical Microscope
Molecular Expressions Microscopy Primer - a great site
www.microscopy.fsu.edu/primer/index.html
Modified Nikon and Olympus versions of above - also worth a look
www.microscopyu.com
www.olympusmicro.com
Olympus's 'basics of light microscopy' & glossary web pages
www.microscopy.olympus.eu/about_microscopy
www.microscopy.olympus.eu/Glossary
Download the Olympus Microscopy Basics and Optical Microscopy pdf files only
Zeiss's 'Microscopy from the very Beginning'
www.zeiss.com. Download the Zeiss Microscopy pdf file
Zeiss's 'The clean microsope', i.e. how to keep your microscope clean
Download The clean microscope pdf file
Modified Hamamatsu [CCD camera] versions of the Microscopy Primer
learn.hamamatsu.com/tutorials
'Fluorescence Microscopy' by Jeff W Lichtman & José-Angel Conchello (2005)
Download: Flourescence Microscopy
'Seeing is Achieving' Nature microscopy special: Vol 459 Number 7247 p629-640 (2009)
Download the articles [WTCHG intranet only]: Microscopic marvels
Microscopy & Analysis: "The premier [free] journal for all microscopists worldwide"
Microscopy and Analysis website
Read the latest copy on-line as a pdf: Microscopy & Analysis
Also see our recommended book Reading List.
Fluorochrome Excitation and Emission Spectral viewers
The Invitrogen Spectral Viewer Fluorochrome DataBase [requires Java]
www.invitrogen.com/Fluorescence-SpectraViewer
For checking the excitation and emission of your fluorochrome dye
The old Bio-Rad [confocal] fluorochrome database
www.zeiss.de/cellscience
For checking the excitation and emission of your fluorochrome dye
The new Zeiss [confocal] spectral database
www.micro-shop.zeiss.com
For checking the excitation and emission of your fluorochrome dye
The BD-BioScience spectral database of flow-cytometry fluorescent dyes
www.bdbiosciences.com
For checking the excitation and emission of your BD fluorochrome dye
Also check out the spectra links on this site
www.fluorophores.tugraz.at
from the Graz University of Technology, plus the spectral viewer at
www.mcb.arizona.edu
from the University of Arizona
Optical Microscope Enthusiast Sites
Advice on buying a cheap microscope for you or your children to use at home
The pdf also include suggestions for schools
Microscopy UK - thousands of microscopy related pages for kids & enthusiasts
www.microscopy-uk.org.uk
Ask-a-microscopist and list-server postings [with an electron microscopy bias]
www.microscopy.com
101Science.com's microscope pages for older school-kids & parents
www.101science.com/Microscope.htm
The Science for Fun website for older school-kids & parents
www.funsci.com/texts/index_en.htm
Schools website of the British Mycological Society
www.fungi4schools.org
Take the 'Micro-Bus' into the world of microscopes
www.microscope-microscope.org
The McCrone atlas of microscopic particles - many images are pay to view
www.mccroneatlas.com
Klaus Kemp's diatom & butterfly scale microscopy slides - to purchase
www.diatoms.co.uk
The Royal Microscopical Society
www.rms.org.uk
The Quekett Microscopical Society
www.quekett.org.uk
The Microscopical Society of America [MICRO for schools]
www.microscopy.org
Olympus Bioscapes site - Beautiful images from the microscope
www.olympusbioscapes.com
Microscopy Live Cell Imaging
PeCon microscope live-cell incubator units and their heaters - as used by Zeiss and Leica microscopes
www.pe-con.de
Solent Scientific - another manufacturer of microscope live-cell incubators
www.solentsci.com
Digital Pixel - another manufacturer of microscope live-cell incubators
www.digitalpixel.co.uk
Live Cell Imaging - The Mattek 3.5cm Petri dish & Multiwell Plates for the inverted microscope www.glassbottomdishes.com.These Petri Dishes and multiwell plates have a coverslip on the base enabling hi-power oil objectives to be used to image the specimen. The dishes are also available pre-coated with collagen and poly-lysine.
PAA Labs sell cheaper, but very similar, 3.5cm glass cover-slip bottomed Petri dishes, which they call 'confocal dishes'. Availlable as plain or plasma pre-treated, although PAA don't offer collagen/Poly-Lysine precoating [you could do this yourself]. In addition PAA labs now make a useful selection of glass bottomed chamber slides.
Similar glass bottomed Petri dishes were made by Awaki [glass base dish] and WillCo Wells [the glass bottom WillCo-dish] but I've not found a UK supplier of these.
CultureWell glass slides and coverslips for inverted microscopes [similar to Lab Tek multi-well slides]. See products.invitrogen.com or download the Culturewell brochure.
Lab Tek II multi-well culture glass slides for inverted microscopes [similar to CultureWell multi-well slides].
www.sigmaaldrich.com 1 to 8 wells per standard 3x1" glass slide
Lab Tek II chambered coverglass [cover-slip] slides for inverted microscopes [ideal for high NA oil objectives]. www.nuncbrand.com 1 to 8 wells per standard 3x1" glass slide,there's a lot of useful info via this link as well. Download Nunc's cell growth/culture guide
Culturewell multi-well glass cover-slips for inverted microscopes [where the cells grow on a thin glass cover-slip]. www.sigmaaldrich.com 1 to 8 wells on a cover-slip rather than a thick glass slide
Greiner bio-one CELLview Petri dishes cell culture and microscopy imaging. Download Greiner CELLview Brochure 1 to 4 wells on a a 3.5cm petri dish
Ibidi μ-well MultiWell, micro-channel and Flask 3x1" slides for slide cell culture and hi-res microscopy imaging. Go to Ibidis web site. Wells and channels with a 150μm membrane cover-slip on a standard slide
There are a few microscope slides thats have special indents to trap individual cells so that you can return to the same cell many hours/days later. An example is the Molecular Cytomics LiveCell Array slide.
Bioptechs live cell microscopy imaging products. Go to Bioptechs web site. Inter-changeable coverslip dishes and on-stage heated flow-cell chambers.
Anti-Fadent Mountants
Invitrogen Molecular Probes - Home to the Alexa dyes and much else besides
probes.invitrogen.com/handbook
A few suggested AntiFadents to help reduce the rate of fluorescence bleaching
www.vectorlabs.com/products Vectashield
www.citifluor.co.uk Citifluor
www.southernbiotech.com Fluoromount G
www.invitrogen.com ProLong Gold
www.polysciences.com Mowoil 4-88
You will get a lower background fluorescence if you stain separately for DAPI.
Otherwise there's ProLong Gold+DAPI and VectaShield+DAPI available.
Microscopy Supplies
Graticules.com for microscope reticules, calibration slides and 'The England Finder'
www.pyser-sgi.com
www.graticules.com
Agar Scientific [UK] for microscopy supplies
www.agarscientific.com
Raymond Lamb [UK] for microscopy supplies
www.ralamb.co.uk
VWR International [formally BDH] for microscopy supplies
www.vwr.com
Invitrogen: Labelling and detection of biomolecules, cells, tissues [home of the Alexa dyes]
http://probes.invitrogen.com/handbook
The PolySciences website shop for all things fluorescent and particulate
www.polysciences.com/shop
Microscopy Image Analysis and Processing Software
Our core offers image anaylsis expertise, guidance and advicefor MetaMorph, ImagePro Plus, Volocity, NISElements, IPLabs, MatLab, LMS510, Genus, and freeware ImageJ/Fuji/CellProfilerMetaMorph image analysis Software
www.moleculardevices.com
Image Pro Plus image analysis Software
www.mediacy.com
Volocity 3D image processing and analysis software
www.perkinelmer.com
Nikon NIS Elements [Basic Research]
www.nis-elements.com
Bitplane's Imaris 2D and 3D image analysis software
www.bitplane.com
ImageJ [PC] and NIHImage [Apple] home page - Free image analysis software
rsb.info.nih.gov/ij Download ImageJ - For Windows, Linux, Java and Apple PCs
www.macbiophotonics.ca/imagej Excellent help on Image J
imagejdocu.tudor.lu Help: The ImageJ documentation portal
imagej.588099.n2.nabble.com The ImageJ on-line forum
You can also download Fiji - which is freeware ImageJ re-packaged into a easier user interface
pacific.mpi-cbg.de/Fiji
It includes a 'stitcher' utility for combining fields into a 'panarama'
pacific.mpi-cbg.de/Stitching_2D/3D
The Broad Institute MIT & Harvard [CellProfiler Freeware]
www.broadinstitute.org
XuV free 4D z-stack stitching tool [not for 2D]
www.xuvtools.org
Our Microscope Manufacturers
Nikon Microscopes on the Web
www.nikoninstruments.eu
www.nis-elements.com
Olympus Microscopes on the Web
www.olympus.co.uk/microscopy
Zeiss Microscopes on the Web
www.zeiss.com/micro
Image Pro Plus [BioRad LaserPix] image analysis software
www.mediacy.com
Improvision's OpenLabs and Volocity web pages
www.perkinelmer.com
Scanlytics IPLab on the web [our Orca camera software]
www.scanalytics.comwww.nis-elements.com