This fast track proposal is for the expansion of an innovative new brightfield digital microscope technology to include fluorescence and automation. The system will have resolution limited only by the objective, high speed 1280 x 1024 x 24 bit images, inherently perfect multi-color pixel registration, and very low illumination power on the sample for minimum fluorescence bleaching. The unique transmitted light fluorescence mode uses a separate high NA condenser to obtain fluorescent images of large specimens at low magnification. The overall goal is to develop a triple-color, fully automated, web-interfaced, digital transmitted light fluorescence and brightfield microscope with the superior high resolution and other characteristics of the current brightfield microscope. The system will use newly developed, very high sensitivity, low noise PMTs for extended sensitivity and dynamic range. The Phase I effort will concentrate on developing single color fluorescence and the Phase II effort will optimize single color fluorescence, and add multicolor fluorescence and automation. The brightfield instrument is already the subject of several imaging and telepathology projects initiated by the Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories under the direction of Dr. Paul Robinson and the Ohio State University Department of Pathology under the direction of Dr. Charles Hitchcock.
This instrument is particularly well suited to the rapidly growing digital microscopy needs in the medical, pharmaceutical, and biomedical communities. The instrument has applications in drug discovery, imaging diagnostics, teaching, clinical conferencing and telepathology, archival and reference image databases, automated analysis, and many other areas. A $1 billion potential market has been identified in North America and Europe.
