Advanced light (fluorescence) microscope imaging.
The Centre for Microscopy and Cellular Imaging is a light microscopy platform based in Concordia’s Biology department. Our specialization is imaging small biological samples (5-10µm) such as cultured mammalian cells, yeast and Candida at high resolution, though we routinely deal with larger samples such as Brachypodium, C. elegans and sections of rat brains, and non-biological samples such as lanthanide nanoparticles and perovskite crystals. Our staff also has extensive experience with image analysis, and can write custom analysis scripts for our users to perform their assays in a fully or semi-automated fashion.
Our facility houses two laser scanning confocal microscopes (LSCM), a total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscope, a swept field live-cell imaging confocal microscope, one upright and two inverted epifluorescent microscopes, and a laser capture microdissection (LCM) microscope.
We provide training on these systems to allow users to perform their own imaging; we can also perform imaging of users ourselves. We can write custom image analysis scripts using the freely-available ImageJ software, and also have a license for the 3D image analysis software Imaris installed on a GPU-equipped workstation. We have tissue culture rooms for both mammalian and fungal cells with safety hoods, incubators, water baths and centrifuges.
- Agriculture, animal science and food
- Fisheries and aquaculture
- Life sciences, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment
Specialized labs and equipment
|
Equipment |
Function |
|---|---|
|
Nikon C2 Confocal Microscope |
Inverted laser scanning confocal microscope with 405, 488, 567 and 640nm lasers, 100x, 60x, 40x and 20x lenses, motorized XYZ stage. |
|
Nikon TIRF microscope |
Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy. Inverted laser scanning confocal microscope with 405, 488, 567 and 640nm lasers, Photometrics Prime BSI camera, 100x, 60x, 40x and 20x lenses, motorized XYZ stage, and stage top incubator. |
|
Nikon Ti Epifluorescence Microscope |
Inverted epifluorescence microscope with 405, 488, 567 and 640nm LEDs, White-light Xenon source, Photometrics Evolve 512 EMCCD camera (Electron Multiplying Charge Coupled Device), 100x, 60x, 40x, 20x and 10x lenses, motorized XY stage, piezo Z-stage, and stage top incubator. |
|
Nikon Swept Field Confocal Microscope |
Inverted swept field confocal microscope with 405, 488, 567 and 640nm lasers, Photometrics Evolve 512 EMCCD camera, 100x, 60x, and 40x lenses, motorized XY stage, piezo Z-stage, and stage top incubator. |
|
Leica DM6000 Epifluorescence Microscope |
Upright epifluorescence microscope equipped with DAPI, FITC and TxRed filters, Hamamatsu ORCA-ER camera, 100x, 60x, 40x, 20x, 10x and 5x lenses. |
|
Leica DMI6000 Epifluorescence Microscope |
Inverted epifluorescence microscope equipped with DAPI, FITC, TxRed, and Cy5 filters, Hamamatsu ORCA-ER camera, 63x, 40x, and 20x lenses and a motorized XYZ stage. |
|
Olympus FV10i Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope |
Inverted microscope equipped with 405, 473, 559 and 640nm lasers, 10x and 60x lenses, and a motorized XYZ stage. |
|
Life Technologies Arcturus Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) System |
Inverted microscope equipped with Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) and Red Fluorescent Protein (RFP) filters, and UV and infrared (IR) lasers for microdissection of individual cells from complex tissues. |
|
Analysis computer |
Intel i9 processor, 32GB RAM and a NVIDIA RTX 3090 GPU. |