The state-of-the-art atomic force microscopy facility, under the direction of Dr. Tanya Dahms, consists of a Nanowizard AFM housed on the fifth floor of RIC (535) in the Cellular Impacts facility. It is semi-permanently mounted on a Zeiss Axio observer A1 inverted research microscope with differential interference contrast. The Nanowizard AFM can be mounted on two other microscopes housed in the same room: a Zeiss Axio observer Z1 automated inverted fluorescence research microscope and a Zeiss confocal laser scanning microscope (LSM 780) with 34 GaAsP detector channels, seven excitation lasers spanning the UV and visible range, and a Ti:Sapph laser for two-photon excitation for deep tissue imaging and fluorescence (cross) correlation spectroscopy (FCS/FCCS).

The ability of AFMs to simultaneously probe surface ultrastructure, chemical and physical properties at the nanometer and picoNewton scales is well beyond the limitations of conventional optics. The UofR AFMs have been applied to a range of biological systems, from lipid monolayers and bilayers to live fungal hyphae and bacteria, but has wide application in all the natural sciences.

The integration of atomic force and optical microscopes represents a new era in microscopy, allowing researchers to simultaneously investigate the sample interior and exterior. Optical microscopes have a relatively large field of view with diffraction-limited resolution (100s of nm), whereas the AFM offers sub-nanometer scale resolution for a small field of view. Thus, combining the two with accurate image overlay provides a millimeter-scale field of view with sub-nanometer resolution. Integration of the AFM with the confocal system enables simultaneous probing of cell surface physical, chemical and ultrastructural changes with optical sectioning and 3D reconstruction, multi-wavelength, and single molecule detection to study the distribution and movement of proteins in live cells and intracellular molecular response. Simultaneous imaging not only expedites data collection, but facilitates new assay development with broad applications in preventative health and environmental assessment. This integrated microscopy facility is unique to UofR and only one of several similar facilities in Canada.

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