Organization profile

Overview

The University Imaging Centers cover over 11,000 square feet of resources in three primary sites on the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campuses. Snyder Hall on the St. Paul campus, Jackson Hall on the Minneapolis East Bank campus, and the Cancer and Cardiovascular Research Building located in the Biomedical Discovery District on the East Bank campus. The network of facilities offers instrumentation and support for light and electron microscopy, in-vivo imaging from sub-cellular to whole animal, and image analysis/visualization. The UIC is a Nikon Center of Excellence.

Operating under the direction of Mark Sanders the UIC has six full-time staff members, three part-time as well as multiple undergraduate employees that can assist in experimental design, probe and labeling selection, sample handling, tissue clearing, as well as data analysis and interpretation.

The University Imaging Centers is supported by the College of Biological Sciences and AHC/Medical School and is advised by a 13-member University-wide Advisory Panel.

Optical Systems include:

• Laser scanning confocal microscopes with multiphoton capabilities (two)
• Single photon confocal microscopes (six, three with spectral unmixing)
• Super resolution Structured Illumination Microscopy (SIM)
• Spinning disk confocal microscope
• Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) Microscope
• Fluorescent spectral meso-confocal
• Automated widefield microscopes
• High speed ribbon confocal
• LightSheet

Also available at UIC facilities:

• Spectral scans
• Deconvolution
• High-content widefield and confocal plate imaging
• FRET (Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer)
• FRAP (Fluorescence Recover After Photobleaching)
• FLIM (Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging
• SHG (Second Harmonic Generation) Imaging
• Multi-channel live cell time-lapse
• Small animal/bioluminescence / fluorescence (four, on with X-ray)
• BSL-2 cabinets
• Phosphor / fluorescence scanners for molecular biology
• Bioluminescence and fluorescence in-vivo small animal imagers
• microPET/CT
• diSPIM light sheet
• Tissue clearing
• Large format poster printing
• 3D printing
• Brightfield and fluorescence slide scanning.