Secrets of cells unlocked by new facilities unveiled at Imperial

Two new microscopy centres launched today at the College - News

By Danielle Reeves
Wednesday 4 July 2007

Two new imaging facilities for looking at cells and molecules are officially opened by Imperial's Rector Sir Richard Sykes  today. The GBP 1.5 million facilities will provide researchers from across the College with leading-edge technology for imaging across a range of scales, from whole living organisms, down to the proteins inside cells.

The new equipment will also combine these two approaches for the first time at Imperial, allowing scientists to look at whole cells with extremely high levels of resolution usually reserved for looking at individual molecules, like proteins.

The first new centre is called the Facility for Imaging by Light Microscopy (FILM), and is based in the Sir Alexander Fleming building. Led by the Faculty of Medicine's Professor Tony Magee , it contains eight powerful optical microscopes, which can magnify cell samples 2,000 times.

Professor Magee explains: "Light microscopy is an essential tool for scientists in many areas of research, as it allows us to look at changes in a living cell over time. Unlike higher resolution microscopes, which take static 'snapshots,' the equipment in FILM allows us to observe life in motion, as it happens. For example we can label certain components of a cell with a fluorescent probe, and then observe their movements and actions within the cell."

The second facility, designed to complement the work in FILM, is the Electron Microscopy Centre. Led by Professors Marin van Heel  and Paul Freemont   from the Division of Molecular Biosciences in the Faculty of Natural Sciences, this centre has five electron microscopes which can magnify samples by 500,000 times, down to a resolution of just one nanometre. This facility will allow researchers to see the 'ultra structure' of cells – meaning the molecules inside the cell. However, it will also be used by Imperial scientists to pioneer a new kind of imaging that bridges the gap between these nano-scale images of cell components and the 'big picture' imaging of the whole cell using light microscopy.

Professor Freemont explains: "We are hoping to use this new facility to move from imaging individual molecules at the nano-scale to producing topographical 'maps' of the whole cell at the same high resolution. The possibilities afforded by this new technique, combined with the availability of 'living cell' imaging in the FILM centre, will mean that Imperial scientists have access to a comprehensive imaging infrastructure across the entire range of scales required for state-of-the-art cellular research."

Professor van Heel added: "We already have an established, internationally recognised research centre in single molecule imaging, since 1999. This new facility will mean we can now extend this existing work to visualise these molecules in cells which is very exciting."

GBP 1.5 million of these new facilities are SRIF III funded. This is in addition to approximately GBP 5 million existing investment by the College in cellular and molecular imaging facilities over the last eight years.

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