MRI: Acquisition of an OMX Super-Resolution Microscope

An award is made to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to purchase a super-resolution light microscope, which will provide biologists and other scientists at our institution with an unprecedented capacity to advance life science research. This new instrumentation, the only example of this sort in the state of North Carolina, will provide scientists on the UNC campus and throughout the region with cutting edge technology for both instructional and research use, allowing us to expose current and future undergraduates and graduate students to the latest approaches in their discipline. By increasing the ability to resolve cellular structures, research at UNC can make an even greater impact on the knowledge of our world as well as understanding human health. This award marks the continued dedication of the UNC system to provide the best possible environment for our students and scientists.

The award of the super-resolution microscope will support the entirety of the diverse research in biological sciences at UNC. Housed in the new interdisciplinary Genome Sciences Building, the super-resolution microscope will be positioned to service projects in the College of Arts and Science (In the Departments of Physics, Math, Chemistry, and Biology) as well as in basic science Departments in the School of Medicine. Research topics range from understanding how cells adhere to and communicate with one-another to how the genome is controlled. Understanding the cellular underpinnings of these processes will help keep UNC at the forefront of the biological sciences for the years to come.