Andor Dragonfly 202 Spinning Disk Confocal Microscope for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Project Summary/Abstract The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) is requesting an Andor Dragonfly 202 Spinning Disk Confocal Microscope. This microscope is ideal for sensitive, fast imaging of live samples. It will enable research in Stem Cell Biology, Neuroscience, Cancer Biology, Plant Science and Cell Biology, in 17 laboratories from 10 Departments across 3 Schools at UNC-CH. This microscope will allow experiments that are currently not possible at UNC-CH as there are no available systems with the Dragonfly?s combination of sensitivity, large field of view, performance in thick tissue, and compatibility with a broad palette of fluorophores. This grant outlines in detail how the current imaging options at UNC-CH fall short, provides evidence for why the Dragonfly 202 is the best option among all the systems considered and justifies specific features that are required to make critical experiments possible. Briefly, the requested system will have 6 laser lines that cover all commonly-used fluorophores (BFP, CFP, GFP, YFP, RFP, far red), a sCMOS camera that is sensitive and fast, an EMCCD camera with maximum sensitivity, objectives ideal for either cellular-level or subcellular-level details, and an incubator enclosure to ensure viability of live samples for multi-day experiments. The University is requesting $474,445 in Federal Funds, which it will supplement with $76,455 from internal sources to ensure the instrument has all the features needed to support UNC-CH researchers? needs. This microscope will be placed in the Microscopy Services Laboratory, a recharge core facility with a 30+ year history supporting the microscopy needs of the UNC-CH community. As detailed in this application, the core is strongly supported by the University, has personnel with demonstrated expertise in the type of instrument being requested, a strong track record training and assisting researchers, and a large and broad user base of more than a hundred labs and several hundred researchers. We expect this instrument will rapidly become a workhorse for live-cell imaging at UNC-CH and will catalyze major discoveries across multiple subject areas.