Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Service

The Cellular Imaging Core Facility (CICF) is a major hub for microscopy in Oxford, providing imaging solutions from the organismal to the molecular level. The CICF is much more than a point of use facility. In addition to excellent quality tailored user training and ongoing support on all systems covering a wide range imaging modalities, we also offer advice and guidance throughout each stage of imaging projects. We strongly encourage users come to the core at the project conceptualisation stage, we then work with them through planning, sample preparation, imaging, data analysis, figure preparation and finally publication.

Resources and Facilities

The Cellular Imaging Core offers cutting edge techniques for:

MICROSCOPY

  • High-content imaging
  • Long term live cell imaging
  • SoRa super-resolution microscopy
  • Airyscan super-resolution microscopy
  • Whole slide imaging
  • Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS)
  • Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy (FLIM)
  • Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscopy (TIRF)
  • Photoactivated Localization Microscopy (PALM)
  • Spectral Imaging (SI) and Single Particle Tracking (SPT)

ANALYSIS

We have several image analysis software packages including Arivis Vision 4D (2 licences), Zen Blue, LAS X, Imaris, ScanR analysis as well as freeware such as Fiji/ImageJ and Cell Profiler. These software packages are hosted on our 3 high end image analysis workstations, the Titans.

Research and Development

We develop novel methods and techniques for quantitative cellular imaging, and we have a particular interest in long term high resolution imaging and analysis in organoids and other complex samples.

Current developments with our collaborators include projects focusing on the long term multi-dimensional imaging of iPSC derived neuronal organoids, super-resolution mitochondrial tracking, high-content wound healing and cellular migration and macrophage motility and morphology.

Nobel Prize Winning Microscopy Techniques at the WTCHG Cellular-Imaging Core

Eric Betzig (The Howard Hughes Medical Institute), William Moerner (Stanford University) and Stefan Hell (The Max Planck Institute) have been awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their recent work on super-resolution fluorescence microscopy.

Eric Betzig recieved the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work on PALM (Photo-Activated Laser Microscopy), and the PALM/STORM super-resolution technique is available on our Zeiss Elyra microscope. William Moerner recieved his Nobel prize for the development of laser spectroscopy and microscopy to detect single molecules and so probe biological processes, one biomolecule at a time. We are working with this advanced technique on our SP8-X Single Molecule Detection (SMD) confocal microscope.

Core Members

Core Facility Manager : Dr James Bancroft

Core Facility Assistant : Edward Drydale

To Contact us

For general inquiries, and to arrange microscope training, please email us at cellular-imaging@well.ox.ac.uk. Our telephone number is: +44 1865 287568