Cinema Lab

Purpose

To create a state-of-the-art light microscopes imaging center. This will provide cutting edge technologies to address complex cell biological questions that can not be addressed with standard methodologies.

For instance, Total Internal Reflection Fluorescent Microscopy (TIRFM) allows imaging of a very thin plane (<100 nm) so events that occur near the cell surface (e.g. membrane trafficking, cytoskeleton) can be observed with exquisite clarity. With this approach detection of single molecules are possible. A 4D (3D + time) multicolor spinning disk confocal microscopy (SDCM) allows for fast live cell imaging of fast moving dim objects that traverse several focal planes.

Site and On-site Operations Capacities:

The CINEMA Lab imaging center is located in SHM IE17/19/21 and is adjacent to the CCMI facility and EM facilites (IE-wing, basement of SHM). CINEMA Lab is equipped to accommodate 6 advanced microscope setups. It was can accommodate water-cooled lasers (20-70 Amps) and multiple air-cooled lasers and has ceiling equipment racks and blackout curtains. It is designed for use with research grade lasers in safety: the room is electronically card coded, has emergency cut-off switches and warning signs, curtained partitions, and water leak detection.

It also has an adjacent tissue cell culture room with CO2 incubators, two class II biosafety hood, a refrigerator/freezer, and centrifuges. Thus researchers can easily prepare samples in advance without worrying about damaging cells in transit and use sterile technique when preparing cells or working with viruses. There is also a ‘wet-lab’ bench so that researchers can easily manipulate samples before or during use. Last, the center has a bench with Ethernet links to accommodate post-data acquisition computers.