CALM imaging services during the SARS-CoV2 pandemic

The CALM Facility is open for business and offers almost the entire range of our usual services. However, due to the present restrictions caused by the pandemic are in operation and new local health and safety rules need to be followed. For more information or if you are in the process of resuming your research work in the facility, please contact the CALM Facility staff.

Bioimaging and light microscopy - Synopsis

The past decades have seen a revolution in molecular biological research, generating a wealth of scientific data from areas such as genomics, proteomics and metabolomics. However, due to the lack of spatial and temporal information from these molecular approaches it is difficult to understand how genes express defined patterns of proteins, which constitute cells and finally develop into whole organisms.  Microscopy ideally lends itself to providing this spatio-temporal information from intact cells, tissues and organisms on a scale from metres down to nanometres, and with a temporal resolution of days to milliseconds. The dramatic technical developments in the field of light microscopy now give us a fast-improving experimental ‘tool kit’ with which to analyse how single molecules behave within intact live cells and to integrate optical techniques with molecular strategies.

The CALM facility

This facility has been established in the Queen’s Medical Research Institute at Little France in Edinburgh to provide infrastructure and services for biological imaging. The CALM facility aims not only to provide the technical systems and expertise required for a wide range of biological applications of basic and advanced light microscopic methods, but also to give advice about fluorescent labelling techniques, experimental planning, image restoration and data analysis. It therefore aspires to provide researchers in the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine with a resource of very versatile, integrative tools to complement existing techniques.

Taking optical imaging to the next level

A cross-Centre bid to the Medical Research Council, as part of the 'Next Generation Optical Microscopy' call, has been successful and the award was granted in December 2012. The funding allowed to expand the existing light microscopy infrastructure at Little France as part of the CALM facility by implementing a high through-put spinning disk confocal platform and a high-end multi-functional intra-vital imaging system.

Rolly Wiegand

Head of the CALM facility and academic lead

 

 

Imaging MSc/diploma as eLearning programme

The CMVM is offering a new Imaging MSc/diploma as part of an online learning programme (for more information see Imaging MSc).