Imaging of biological specimens has become an increasingly important tool in biomedical science, with the abilities to image live specimens and multiple fluorophores being especially important. We propose to purchase a Zeiss LSM510 confocal microscope system to be housed in the Cell Imaging Facility of the University of Utah School of Medicine. This confocal would replace an obsolete entry-level confocal (Olympus FVX) and improve the capabilities of the facility by adding a wide choice of excitation wavelengths, as well as fast switching between multiple emission filters. An environmentally controlled specimen chamber and motorized X-Y stage would particularly facilitate live-cell imaging experiments. No instrument with this set of features is currently available anywhere at the University of Utah. The core Cell Imaging Facility is centrally located in the School of Medicine, and is overseen by a fulltime Ph.D. director with postdoctoral experience. Under his direction the facility has been highly successful, with heavy use of the existing confocal microscopes (>35 hours/week/microscope). The director provides training and support to users in addition to maintaining the microscopes and administering their use. Furthermore, every year he teaches a didactic microscopy course together with the Principal Investigator. There is a strong institutional commitment to providing core microscopy facilities. The University of Utah fully funds the facility director's salary, and guarantees the cost of service contracts. The instrument's use would be monitored by an oversight committee, which would liaise with a committee that oversees all of the School of Medicine's core facilities. This instrument would primarily serve 7 major users from 4 different departments in the School of Medicine. These researchers are funded by 14 current R01, P01 or R37 NIH grants and are studying systems including cultured cells, C. elegans, and zebrafish. All of these projects involve live-cell imaging, and would benefit significantly from the improved flexibility in excitation and emission wavelengths offered by the proposed instrument.
