LS2 Live light sheet microscope system

We intend to procure the Viventis LS2 Live light sheet microscope system for the reNEW Center for Stem Cell Medicine Imaging Platform, a microscopy facility with approx. 150 users in the next five years. The platform doesn´t have a light sheet microscope yet. One feature of the light sheet microscope is that only the actually observed section is illuminated. This method reduces the photo damage and stress induced on a living sample. Because light sheet fluorescence microscopy scans samples by using a plane of light instead of a point (as in confocal microscopy), it can acquire images at speeds 100 to 1,000 times faster than those offered by point-scanning methods. Since our confocal microscopes are heavily overbooked, often for live cell imaging (14h per day, including weekends) and the demand in fast and long term live cell imaging is rising steeply a light sheet microscope (ideal for fast, long term live cell imaging) will help overcome this bottleneck. This microscope will not only free some time of the confocal microscopes, but will allow us to image biological events much faster with higher time resolution, for much longer time periods without inducing light damage (as it is imaging very gently) and thereby enable us to get new insights for our research questions in the many different projects. Many of our research groups do study functional characterization of cell behavior during tissue regeneration. Those kinds of research projects require the features of the light sheet microscope that enables imaging very gently with low phototoxicity for very long periods (up to 7 days).