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The Biology Imaging Facility

The Imaging Facility is partially open to accommodate in-person research by critical personnel. Please contact us about using the facility. Here are the COVID-19 related resources recommended by the Office of Research.

The Microscopy and Image Analysis Platform has collected protocols for sanitizing microscopes.

Content: About us • Recent announcements

We maintain several confocal microscopes, a super resolution live cell imaging microscope, 2 electron microscopes, and sample preparation labs.

  • light microscopy
    • GE DeltaVision OMX SR: a super resolution live cell imaging microscope with structured illumination and TIRF
    • Leica SP5 II: a confocal laser scanning microscope with both conventional and resonant point scanners, 7 laser lines, and 4 spectral detectors; suitable for both fixed or live preparation; installed on an inverted stand with motorized stage to facilitate xyzλt and multi-location image acquistion; FRAP and FRET wizards, and ROI scan are available
    • Parrish lab Leica SP5 II on an upright stand: similar to the SP5 above but with fewer detectors and without a resonant scanner
    • (coming soon!) Nikon A1R HD25: a confocal laser scanning microscope with conventional and full field resonant scanners, 4 laser lines; 4 epifluorescent detectors - 2 multialkaline and 2 GaAsP, and 1 transmitted light detector; suitable for both fixed or live preparation; installed on an inverted stand with Perfect Focus and motorized stage to facilitate xyzt and multi-location image acquistion; driven with NIS-Elements for AI-based denoise, FRAP, FLIP, and photoactivation
    • (coming soon!) Yokogawa CSU-X1: a spinning disk confocal microscope with microlens enhanced Nipkow disk for live cell imaging; high quantum yield sCMOS camera and 4 laser lines; super resolution imaging addon for spinning disk; installed on an inverted stand with Perfect Focus and motorized stage to facilitate xyzt and multi-location image acquistion; driven with NIS-Elements for deconvolution and denoise; stage-top incubator with gas mixer for hypoxia condition and temperature control
    • Olympus IX81 with DSU: a spinning disc unit with slit apertures for live cell imaging using a high dynamic range EM-CCD camera with a stable Xenon plasma light source; installed on an inverted stand with motorized stage to facilitate xyzt and multi-location image acquistion
    • various compound and dissecting microscopes for photomicrography: Nikon Eclipse E600FN, Wild M8, and Zeiss Axio Zoom.V16
  • electron microscopy
    • FEI Apreo VolumeScope: a scanning electron microscope for serial blockface imaging with back-scattered electron detectors in both high and low vacuum mode, typical images are 6144×4096 pixels with a resolution of 5 nm in XY and 40 nm in Z, the field of view is 31 µm × 20 µm
    • Philips CM100 transmission electron microscope: a biological TEM operating at 40 kV to 100 kV with better than 4 nm resolution, image can be captured with an Olympus Morada 11-megapixel digital camera up to 2672×3615 pixels, typical image at high magnification has a pixel size of 0.55 nm and the field of view is 1.46 µm × 1.98 µm
  • ancillary labs for sample preparation.

The Biology Imaging Facility is a recharge center and expenses are recovered through hourly charges. The current rates have been approved by Management Accounting and Analysis (MAA) and the Dean's Office in June 2018. The Facility is open to any department or unit affiliated with the University of Washington. External users are also welcome.

All users are subscribed to the IF-forum mailing list to receive announcements from us on recent development and equipment availability. Users can also use the forum to discuss equipment usage or technique, and notify other users for schedule changes or cancellations. You can read the past postings here on the mailing list archive. To further encourage interactions among users, we organize a meeting every fall to introduce our microscopes and services to new members of the Dept and also to discuss any topics our users bring up e.g., sample preparation technique, imaging protocol, facility policy, etc. We have summaries of the past meetings.

Recent announcements

1/7/2021

  • This equipment is not part of the Imaging Facility but will be generally available to the imaging community. STF has funded a desktop SEM: JEOL NeoScope JCM-7000 (2021-3) for the Biology Department. All student will have free access. There will be updates when the SEM is installed.

1/5/2021

  • We have finalized the installation of 2 new confocals: a Nikon A1R HD25 and a Yokogawa X1 with the LiveSR addon. We will be starting training of new users in the coming week.

5/1/2020

  • These equipment are not part of the Imaging Facility but are generally available to the imaging community. STF has funded 2 projects: 24" and 32" display tablets (2020-34) and Imaris licenses (2020-35). These will work nicely with the STF funded high performance computers (2017-101) Biology acquired in 2017. All students will have free access to these equipment.

7/15/2019

  • New rates for July 2019 to June 2020 are in effect.

6/01/2019

  • Kincaid Hall is closed for renovation until 2021. Please see our location page for routes to the Imaging Facility.

3/12/2019

  • OMX SR users: please acknowledge grant proposal S10 OD021490 on any publications that have used this microscope.

7/1/2018

  • Please use the URL on the Rates page to access the google form to log your usage of our equipment. The paper log has been retired!

Date last changed Jan 7th, 2021 @ 21:20:53 PST