"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)."
Investigators at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) are requesting funding from the National Science Foundation to purchase an inverted confocal microscope to be housed in Holmes Hall, the new home of the recently-formed (2005) U.A. Whitaker School of Engineering (WSOE). This microscope will consist of an Olympus FluoView 1000 confocal system configured around an inverted Olympus IX81 microscope. The Olympus system was selected because its zero-drift technology and laser intensity feedback system will allow for superior time-lapse imaging for extended duration experiments that are crucial for particle tracking and determining intracellular particle fate. In addition, the IX81 will be configured for independent standard epifluorescence microscopy, including deconvolution microscopy. Overall, this microscope will provide a significant improvement to the facilities currently available and will make it possible for researchers at FGCU and neighboring institutions to expand their research to include cellular and sub-cellular imaging. The main use of this system will revolve around three primary investigators, one (Geiger) within the WSOE and two (Isern and Michael) within the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS). All three are affiliated with FGCU's Whitaker Center for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education at various levels, including serving as interim co-director (Ise.0rn) and acting as undergraduate research mentors within the center (all). The CAS has a research requirement for their science undergraduates, and the CAS investigators with the aid of an established postdoctoral training program have a proven track record for not only training undergraduate researchers, but also for publishing their research in leading journals and for placing their undergraduate researchers in top-tier graduate programs, medical schools, high-wage positions in the bioscience sector, and K-12 science education.
