SCIENTIFIC REPORT 2004 - Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center

S H A R E D R E S O U R C E S
S H A R E D R E S O U R C E S
A N A L Y T I C A L I M A G I N G C O R E
MANAGER
Alberto Pugliese, M.D.
Associate Professor of Medicine
CO-MANAGER
Beata R. Frydel, Ph.D.
Associate Scientist of Neurosurgery
PURPOSE
Many research endeavors rely on state-of-theart
imaging and molecular histology techniques
requiring the use of complex and costly
equipment not practical for the individual investigator
to acquire and maintain. The Analytical
Imaging Core is a campus-wide resource spearheaded
by the Diabetes Research Institute and
UM/Sylvester, with seed support from the dean
of the University of Miami School of Medicine.
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
awarded additional support for a five-year period
in December 2003. The core’s main goals are to:
• Provide access to sophisticated, modern instrumentation
for imaging and molecular analysis
of tissue and cellular specimens to investigators.
• Provide expertise, guidance, and training to
core users and help them optimize protocols for
their applications that can be shared with other
investigators.
SERVICES
This core provides the following services:
1) Confocal Microscopy: Confocal microscopy offers
many advantages over standard fluorescent
microscopy including increased sensitivity,
resolution, and the ability to image relatively
thick, fluorescently labeled biological specimens
in two or three dimensions. Confocal
microscopy creates an “optical section” of the
cells or tissues being imaged and an increase in
effective resolution due to a large increase in
signal-to-noise ratio. As a result, outstanding
images can be collected from cells and tissue
sections that would otherwise yield little or no
information.
The workhorse instrument for confocal microscopy
is the Zeiss LSM-510, which can detect
up to five channels and four fluorescent
channels simultaneously—from UV to far red,
plus a separate detector for transmitted light.
The outstanding beam control afforded by the
Zeiss LSM-510 makes it an ideal instrument
for other advanced fluorescent applications
such as fluorescence resonance energy transfer
(FRET), fluorescence recovery after photo
bleaching (FRAP), or ratio-imaging for
fluorescence quantitation. The core also is
equipped with an Atto Instruments spinning
disk confocal microscope (CARV), a confocal
instrument particularly suited for live cell
analysis, and video-rate (30 frames per second)
imaging.
2) Standard Epifluorescence Microscopy: The core
also is equipped with a Leica DMIRB inverted
microscope capable of performing triple fluorescence,
phase contrast, and light microscopy, etc.
UM/Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center Scientific Report 2004 143