Live Cell Inverted Epifluorescent Microscope Platform

Description

This requirement is for the purchase of a live cell inverted epifluorescent microscope platform. The microscope will be purchased for the Medical Research Council funded grant entitled “Dissecting The Red Blood Cell Invasion Pathways of the Malaria Parasite Plasmodium knowlesi”. The microscope will predominantly be used for 3D imaging of live fluorescently tagged malaria parasites during the process of red blood cell invasion, but will also be used for imaging of fixed immunolabelled samples. The system should be fully automated to allow rapid imaging (multiple frames per second) across several different fluourescence and DIC channels, facilitated with LED illumination and high sensitivity monochrome camera. The microscope will also need to take time lapse images with Z-stacking across multiple channels. The ability to combine this with accurate multipoint acquisition is highly desirable. The microscope will be used to image very small but complex eukaryotic cells (as small as 1 micron) so will also require high numerical aperture and magnification lenses.