Research, Innovation & Impact

2024 Image Contest

The Advanced Light Microscopy Core (ALMC) is again holding its annual light microscopy image contest, and we would love to have your entries! Images taken on any ALMC instrument are eligible. To enter the contest, submit an electronic file (TIF file format is preferred) with your most beautiful image to Alexander Jurkevich at jurkevica@missouri.edu or Frank Baker at bakerrf@missouri.edu by April 2. Please provide a short caption that describes the image and includes your name, instrument used, name of your laboratory's principal investigator and department. If we get too many entries, we reserve the right to have a committee pick a selection for the display.

A poster with all entries will be displayed from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. April 11 during the Vendor Resource Fair in McQuinn Atrium, Bond Life Sciences Center. Attendees will have a chance to vote for their favorite image. Contest results will be announced at 3 p.m. April 12 in Monsanto Auditorium, Bond LSC, during the awards ceremony concluding Show Me Research Week.

Thank you and good luck!
The ALMC Staff

Price increases

On July 1, we will be increasing the core staff assistance fee from $30/hour to $40/hour. Over the past 15 years, this fee has remained flat, while the core staff has transformed from one PhD and a technician to two PhD-level scientists. The complexity of offered services, the expertise of the staff and their compensation have likewise increased. This change will impact assisted usage of instruments and the cost of new user training for all instrumentation, as well as image analysis performed by the core staff. Moreover, the hourly rates for the use of the confocal and STED systems during business hours will increase by $2-$3, depending on the instrument. This step has become necessary because of cost increases associated with new service contracts and equipment maintenance. The current rates for extended use (>4 hours) of the confocal microscopes for after hours and on weekends will not change. The use of the Thunder stereoscope will increase from $5 to $6/hour. Price increases are detailed in the table below. Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.

Honoring our founder

Thomas Phillips, retired Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor, biological sciences professor and founder of our core, spoke during a ceremony naming the room inside the Bond Life Sciences Center that houses the Advanced Light Microscopy Core the Thomas E. Phillips Light Microscopy Facility in his honor. Read the full story.

New Leica ARTOS 3D Ultramicrotome

We are pleased to announce the arrival of the new Leica ARTOS 3D ultramicrotome. This highly automated ultramicrotome will simplify the production of semi-thin sections for high resolution light microscopy and immunocytochemistry. The ARTOS ultramicrotome also eliminates many of the manual manipulations needed to produce consistent ribbons of serial sections for array tomographic reconstruction of 3D volumes in immunofluorescence and electron microscopy studies, and opens up new avenues for correlative light and electron microscopy (CLEM). The instrument also comes with the EM RAPID high speed milling system for the trimming of resin-embedded specimens for subsequent sectioning.  We are grateful to Professor Martin Katz (Department of Ophthalmology), who obtained the NIH funding for the instruments and placed them in the ALMC to be used as a shared resource. 
 
If you are interested in using the ARTOS ultramicrotome or would like to know more about its capabilities, please contact us at 573-882-4895.

New cryostat and a software upgrade

We are pleased to announce that the ALMC has acquired a Leica CM3050 S research cryostat to replace our aging cryostat. The Leica CM3050 S is a motorized instrument that can produce sections ranging from 0.5 to 300 microns in thickness. Users will appreciate the precise specimen positioning system in the X and Y directions for ensuring both accurate and repeatable orientation of frozen tissue blocks. Moreover, the cryostat offers separate cooling controls for the cryochamber and specimen, enabling optimal sectioning temperatures for a wide range of animal and plant tissues. Together, these features make the new Leica CM3050 S cryostat useful at preparing samples for immunohistochemistry or at performing the first steps of Visium Spatial Gene Expression profiling. We are extremely grateful to the Interdisciplinary Plant Group (IPG), the Bond Life Sciences Center and the Division of Research, Innovation & Impact for providing funding for this much needed instrument. 

Thanks to the further support of the IPG, the core has received an upgrade to its Huygens Professional deconvolution software program. This upgrade will allow investigators to deconvolve wide-field fluorescence images acquired either at the ALMC or in their home labs. It is a perfect complement to the deconvolution software we currently offer for use with images acquired by confocal and STED super-resolution microscopy. Please contact us for additional information.