Microscopy Facility News - Department of Anatomy

Directorship. The Director of the Microscopy Facility, Dr. Scott Henderson, will be leaving VCU (as of March 31, 2017) to take up a faculty position at The Scripps Research Institute. VCU is currently undertaking a national search to recruit a new Director for the facility. Until a new Director is hired, please direct inquiries to the Microscopy Facility staff. [03/29/17].
Transmission Electron Microscopy. A new TEM (Jeol JEM-1400Plus) is to be installed in the Microscopy Facility sometime during late May, 2017. [02/01/17].
Reservations. Reservations for all Microscopy Facility resources are now made via the VCU RAMS FORCE system. The CORES reservation system is no longer active. Instructions for creating a reservation may be found at the Sign Up Instructions link on the left margin of the Microscopy website. A video tutorial is also available from the VCU Office of Research. [01/11/16].
Fluorescence Microscopy. A new Spot RT3 CCD camera has been added to the Nikon Eclipse microscope in room 9-064. [02/18/16].
Confocal laser scanning microscopy. The Zeiss LSM700 confocal laser scanning microscope has been relocated to 9-077. [11/14/14].
TIRF / Super-Resolution Microscopy. A TIRF laser unit & optics have been connected to the Nikon N-SIM Strutured Illumination Microscope. In addition to structured illumination microscopy (3D-SIM, 2D-SIM and TIRF-SIM), the system is now capable of independent, mutli-line TIRF imaging. [9/12/14].
Fluorescence Microscopy. A Zeiss AxioObserver A1 (invert) equipped with an Axiocam MRc5 color CCD camera, fluorescence optics (BFP, GFP, Cy3) and 5x, 10x, 20x, 40x, 40xLD, & 63x objective lenses has been installed in 9-073a. [8/1/14].
Fluorescence Microscopy. The Olympus BX41 microscope has been relocated to Sanger 9-064.
Structured Illumination Microscopy. The Nikon N-SIM structured illumination microscope has been installed in 9-073 and is now available for use. [5/16/14].
Confocal laser scanning microscopy. The Zeiss LSM700 confocal laser scanning microscope has been relocated to 9-056D. [4/13/14].
Fluorescence Microscopy. The Nikon Eclipse E800 microscope has been relocated to room 9-064 and the Zeiss AxioImager A1 has been relocated to 9-056B. [4/13/14].
Super-Resolution Microscopy. A Nikon N-SIM structured illumination microscope has been purchased recently and will be installed in 9-073 at the beginning of May, 2014. [4/28/14].
Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy. The Leica TCS-SP2 AOBS confocal laser scanning microscope has been relocated down the hall to room 9-064a. [4/24/14].
Transmission Electron Microscopy. A new side mount CCD camera (Gatan Orius SC1000) has been added to the TEM to supplement the bottom-mount Ultrascan 4000SP. [1/24/14].
Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy. The Becker & Hickl Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging system (FLIM) has been relocated from the multi-photon laser scanning microscope to the Zeiss LSM710 confocal laser scanning microscope (located in room 9-069a). [12/16/13].
Fluorescence microscopy. A Zeiss A1 fluorescence microscope (equipped with 10x, 20x, 40x, 63x, & 100x objective lenses, filters for DAPI, GFP, Cy3 fluorescence and a Axiocam MRc CCD camera) has been installed in 9-056. [10/18/12].
TIRF. The TIRF microscope has been upgraded with an Andor iXon emCCD camera and a 405 nm laser. [8/31/12].
Fluorescence microscopy. A widefield fluorescence microscope (inverted) has been set up in 9-069e. The system is a Zeiss Axiovert 200 equipped with a Hamamastu ORCA ER CCD camera, Colibri LED illumination unit (blue, green, red), white light LED and a stage heater (for live cell imaging). [4/30/12].
Confocal laser scanning microscopy. A Zeiss LSM 710 microscopy has been installed in room 9-069a (replacing the old LSM 510). The new microscope is a 34 channel spectral system (equipped with a 32-channel array detector (QUASAR) and two side PMT detectors, plus a transmitted light detector) and is configured around an AxioObserver (inverted) stand with a motorized XY stage. The system has five lasers: blue diode (405 nm), multi-line Argon (458, 488, 514 nm), green diode (561 nm), red HeNe (633 nm) and a 440 nm pulsed laser and is set up for FRET, FRAP and FLIM analysis. [4/30/12].
Confocal laser scanning microscopy. A Zeiss LSM 700 has been installed in room 9-073a. The system is configured around an AxioImager (upright) stand and has 4 solid state lasers (405 nm, 488 nm, 555 nm, and 635 nm), 2 confocal PMTs, a variable secondary dichroic (VSD) beamsplitter and a transmitted light detector. [4/16/12]
Confocal microscopy. The Zeiss LSM510 META confocal laser scanning micrsocope will be replaced in April, 2012 with a new Zeiss LSM 710 confocal laser scanning microscope. The new microscope will be equipped to accommodate live cell imaging, FRET, FRAP, & FLIM. [2/27/12]
TIRF. The total internal reflection fluorescence microscope has been upgraded with Olympus cellTIRF steering optics and will soon be upgraded with an emCCD camera, a multi-channel AOTF and a 405 nm laser. [2/27/12]
Stereology. The CAST2 system has been recently upgraded with newCAST software and a new CCD camera (capable of imaging fluorescent samples). [9/20/11]
Atomic Force Microscopy. The Veeco BioscopeII AFM has been upgraded to a Bruker Catalyst AFM. [6/17/11]
Spinning Disc confocal microscopy. The spinning disc confocal microscope, puchased with funds from an NIH-NCRR shared instrumentation award, has been installed recently. The Zeiss Cell Observer SD spinning disc confocal microscope is equipped with a Yokogawa CSU-X1A spinning disc, 2 Photometrics QuantEM 512SC cameras (for high speed, high sensitivity imaging), a high resolution piezo driven Z stage (for rapid 3D data collection), 4 lasers (405 nm, 458/488/514 nm, 561 nm, 635 nm), Colibri LED, FRAP/uncaging and a stage incubation system (to support live cell / live tissue imaging). [1/31/11]
Several of the microscopes and other equipment in the facilty have been relocated to new rooms: AFM (9-077), MPLSM (9-075), stereoscope (9-056e), cryostat (9-056d), vibratome (9-056), fluorescence microscope (9-056f), stereology (9-056a), microdissection system (9-075b). [1/31/11]
A dedicated cell culture facility, to support live cell imaging, has been set up in Sanger 9-075b. [1/31/11]
Fluorescence Microscopy. A Zeiss AxioImager2 automated upright microscope equipped with a Q-Imaging CCD camera, fluorescence optics, motorized XY stage, microcator and Microbrightfield Neurolucida imaging / image analysis software has been installed. [10/15/10]