This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The proposed instrument will allow cellular imaging at the nanoscale with resolution and sensitivity that are much higher than what is currently possible with optical microscopy. The instrument will combine the state-of-the-art confocal microscope and a partial wave spectroscopy module. The instrument will allow quantification of cellular nanoscale architecture with sensitivity up to a few nanometers, molecular as well as structural imaging in nearly real time. The instrument will work with live as well as fixed cells. The instrumentation takes advantage of a novel optical technology, single-cell partial-wave spectroscopic microscopy. The instrument will provide information about cell nanoarchitecture and its relationship to molecular events, which has not been possible to obtain before. The proposed microscope will be a unique device that will open new directions for basic science as well as translational research including cell biology, bioengineering and development of novel diagnostic devices, nanotechnology, fundamental electromagnetics, tissue engineering, and macromolecular biophysics.
Recent thrusts to understand biological processes at the nanoscale have been stymied by a lack of practical means for the nanoscale analysis of cellular organization. The goal of this NSF Major Research Instrumentation project is to develop a novel optical microscope to quantify and image the properties of cellular nanoscale architecture. The instrument developed in the course of the project allows cellular imaging at the nanoscale with resolution and sensitivity that are much higher than what is currently possible to achieve with conventional optical microscopy. The microscope is a unique device that is bound to open new directions for basic science as well as translational research including cell biology and biophysics, medical diagnostics, and nanotechnology. A particularly significant application of the technology is related to the understanding of the alterations of cellular nanoscale structure in early carcinogenesis. Cell nanoscale architecture is one of the facets of the cell that is altered very early in carcinogenesis. Ability to detect these alterations would help scientists understand the initial events in cancer development, i.e., why some cells are at a higher risk of developing genetic mutations that turn them into cancerous cells? From the societal and medical perspectives, the technology may emerge as a principally new platform that would enable for the first time highly accurate, low-cost, and patient-friendly cancer screening in population at a stage when cancer is still treatable without complications.
