An award is made to Western Kentucky University for the acquisition of a Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope for research and instruction at a primarily undergraduate institution. The microscope will build imaging capacity at WKU and in the Southern Kentucky region. It will not only impact the research projects of several faculty members who train Graduate (Masters) and Undergraduate students in their laboratories but also enhance the student learning and research experience. The students will present their findings at the local Student Research Conference and at regional and national meetings. They will also disseminate their findings in the form of refereed publications. The exposure of students to this routine yet state-of-the-art technique and the dissemination of acquired data will benefit their research careers by making them competitive for graduate programs. An existing undergraduate Developmental Genetics, Cell Biology and Microscopy course will incorporate this technique and expose students to this state-of-the-art imaging. Additional courses at graduate and undergraduate level will develop modules for this technique as well. To engage and attract young scientists into choosing careers in the sciences, we will offer teachers and students from local high schools opportunities to visit the facility and learn firsthand the power of confocal microscopy. Additionally, rising high school junior and senior students from the Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science at WKU will also benefit from the availability and technical capabilities of this microscope as several of these students conduct research in the laboratories of the PIs who spearhead a variety of research projects. The microscope will be made available to other regional academic institutions on a fees per use basis and will be advertised at the regional conference organized by the Kentucky Academy of Science. Furthermore, professors and their students within the Kentucky Community and Technical College System will have opportunities to visit the facility for a demonstration of the Confocal Microscope and its capabilities.
Confocal microscopy is routinely utilized by biologists to understand the localization of gene products (proteins and RNA) within a cell in space and time. It also provides valuable insights into the cellular and tissue architecture of developing living systems at resolutions far superior to conventional fluorescence microscopy. Acquisition of this state-of-the-art microscope will impact WKU faculty projects in diverse fields ranging from the Cell and Developmental Biology of fruit flies, Microbiology, Neurobiology of Zebrafish, Endocrinology, Plant Biology, Immunolocalization of proteins in Chlamydomonas to Nanotechnology. The confocal microscope will expand capability and capacity in the Southern Kentucky region and enable students to be part of high caliber research projects. Cellular localization of proteins, generation of high resolution cellular images and understanding mechanisms involved in normal development will all be possible with this microscope, thereby exposing students to sophisticated research.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
