The Imaging Core will provide the microscopy and imaging instruments and expertise to the individualProjects of Program Project Grant. The facilities and personnel of the Imaging Core are drawn from theBiomedical Imaging Group (BIG) at UMMS, a long established and productive group of researchers whohave made significant contributions to cell biology through advances in high spatial and temporal resolutionfluorescence microscopy, and the development of hardware, software, algorithms and techniques. TheImaging Core is located within the laboratory of the Biomedical Imaging Group, which is on the same floor asthe laboratories of the other P.l.s of the Program Project. The central instruments provided are: 1) A DigitalImaging Microscope for multi-color, high-spatial resolution 3-D deconvolution imaging of fixed and livingcells; 2) A unique, custom-built, multi-color, high-temporal resolution micrscope for fast 2-D, and 3-Ddeconvolution imaging of GFP (and variants) and otherfluorophores in living cells overtime; 3) A uniquemulti-color Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscope (TIRFM) which can be combined with fast 3-Dimaging, providing high-resolution images of the spatial domain close (< 300 nm, mean ~100 nm) to theplasma membrane in Iving cells; 4) custom deconvolution software developed by BIG and a Beowulfcomputing cluster to rapidly reconstuct 5-D (multi-color 3-D time series) images of living cells; 5) state-of-artcolor graphics workstations equipped with custom visualization and analysis software for 5-D image analysis;6) Image archivial storage and retrieval file servers for safe on-line storage of the large (terabytes) amount ofdata generated by the Cores instruments and analysis programs. In particluar, the Core will providecontinuing research and development of the imaging and analysis with TIRF microscopy as it is critical to thespecific aims of Projects 1, 2 and 3. The five faculty members of the Core (1.1 FTE) will provide theProgram Project investigators with expertise in: the design of imaging experiments including modifications toequipment, simulation, and testing of experimental protocols; design, modification and application of imageprocessing algorithms and software for image analysis (much analysis of data is carried out by the core), andmaintanence or modification of all neccesary Core resources, including opto-electronics, computers andsoftware systems.
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