News

April 20, 2023

Here at UCSB we've recently started a Microscopy Discussion Club that meets once a month to talk about whatever microscopy topics interest us! See more information here: Microscopy Discussion Club.

Contact Ben Lopez if you'd like to attend or be added to the mailing list.

Nanolive 3D Cell Explorer
May 01, 2019

The Nanolive 3D Cell Explorer is available now! This novel new instrument will capture 30 micron z-stacks of your sample label-free. Think of it like phase contrast on steroids. With its incubation chamber you can do live imaging of your biological samples for days at a time. Contact Ben to arrange a test of the Nanolive to see if it works for you.

See more about it here: https://microscopy.nri.ucsb.edu/instrumentation/nanolive-3d-cell-explorer.

February 09, 2018

The Microscopy Facility has just acquired a new Photometrics Prime sCMOS camera. 

In short, it is much more sensitive, faster, and has a higher pixel count than the previous camera. For now it is mounted on our Olympus BX51 upright compound microscope. If you have dim fluorescence and/or you need fast dynamics (up to 100 frames per second!) this camera could be especially useful. For everyone else it means shorter exposure times, less photobleaching, and sharper images. Come check it out some time!

December 04, 2017

There a couple new items in the facility. The Hercules 2 analysis computer now has Huygens deconvolution software. This is the same deconvolution software that runs on the Leica SP8 confocal PC. It works with those same Leica images but also supports many other image filetypes. On great images you can get a little more resolution, but if you have a low signal-to-noise image it works great to smooth out the noise.

March 22, 2017

Thanks to Dr. Bill Smith and co-PIs with their NIH grant and Dr. Megan Valentine and co-PIs with her NSF grant that have supplied us with these two new amazing microscopes!

image of Ben Lopez at microscope
March 01, 2016

Ben is excited to start as the new Facility Director, and is looking forward to helping you with your microscopy needs. He earned his Ph.D in Physics studying Brownian ratchets and optical traps at University of Oregon. Most recently Ben worked a postdoctoral researcher in the Megan Valentine's lab here at UCSB investigating single-molecule protein diffusion on microtubules using a custom-built TIRF microscope.

November 06, 2015

Dr. Mary Raven has accepted the position of licensing officer and will be starting on December 1, 2015 at TIA

Migration of germline progenitor cells is directed by sphingosine-1-phosphate signalling in a basal chordate
October 15, 2015

Susannah H. Kassmer, Delany Rodriguez, Adam D. Langenbacher, Connor Bui & Anthony W. De Tomaso

July 13, 2015

Enrollment is open for MCDB 290MR, a graduate level seminar focused on light microscopy. Space is limitted.

March 13, 2015

The UC Work Group for Adaptive Optics in Biological Imaging headed by Joel Kubby at UCSC  was selected for support by Multicampus Research Program.

Campus leads:

February 10, 2015

Andor Academy comes to UCSB March 3-4, 2015

January 12, 2015

The Facility hosts the 2015 Advanced Microscopy LIVE Workshop Jan 12-16, 2015

January 12, 2015

Semrock is hosting a learn at lunch on fluorescence filters Monday Jan 12, 12pm on Bio II rm4146. Everyone is welcome. They will be providing lunch
 

December 09, 2014


NRI MCSB Microscopy LabSYNC Spectral Rank: Ultaviolet!
You have achieved the highest ranking!
 

October 25, 2014

NRI-MCDB Microscopy Facility & "It's a Small World" Open House
Biology II Building Room 5173

The Department of Molecular Cellular Developmental Biology and the Neuroscience Research Institute welcome parents and families to interact with the microscopic world.  Experience UCSB's cutting-edge Light Microscopy Facility, which supports courses in Pharmacology, Immunology, Cell Biology and Light Microscopy and research campus wide.  See glowing worms and many other microscopic samples with the research instruments.

October 23, 2014

The Keyence all-in-one microscope is onsite.  Visit the facility to test this system

October 01, 2014

All are welcome to visit the NRI-MCDB Microscopy Facility 2-4pm, Oct, 2014

October 06, 2014

The Diskovery System supports laser spinning-disk confocal, TIRF and point localization super-resolution (e.g. STORM/PALM). Dane Maxfield, Ph.D. Diskovery Application Specialist will provide an overview of the system at 10am on Oct 6, 2014

Monday Oct 6-Talk 10am in Bio II 4164
Demo Mon Oct 6 - Thurs Oct 16in NRI-MCDB Microscopy Facility Bio II rm5173
Reserve a demo time at http://doodle.com/9urty558wq6b7ypu

More Information You can contact Dane at dmaxfield@techinst.com

September 16, 2014

The Leica DCM8 is designed for non-contact 3D optical surface metrology. It combines advantages of High Definition confocal microscopy with interferometry into dual-core system. Ultra-fast analysis is ensured thanks to one-click mode selection, sophisticated software and HD confocal scanning without moving parts.

The system includes a HD CCD camera and 4 LED light sources (RGB and white), delivering realistic color imaging.

August 28, 2014

Representatives from UC Campuses and Laboratories met to discuss their imaging challenges and how adaptive optics might be employed to improve biological imaging.

June 24, 2014

The new NRI-MCDB Microscopy Facility webpage is live.  Refresh your web browser.  If you have issues or suggestions, contact Mary Raven, Ph.D.

May 30, 2014

AFM-IR enables broadly applicable chemical analysis with spatial resolution 50-500X better than conventional IR spectroscopy and with sensitivity down to the scale of individual molecular monolayers.

April 15, 2014

The NRI-MCDB Microscopy Facility received a grant from The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF) to purchase two long-lasting, mercury free illuminators for fluorescence microscopy. These illuminators use less energy to produce better, more stable light without generating mercury waste.