Cooling Stage Workshop

My lab would like to host a Build-a-thon Workshop for labs interested in a stage that cools entire cultivation plates for mass immobilization of C. elegans (see photo, preprint https://www.biorxiv.org/.../10.1101/2021.12.09.471981v3.full). The workshop will be hold on a July 9th. 

High-resolution microscopy involves immobilization and recovery procedures that are extensive and time-consuming, including making slides and mounting animals. By cooling animals on their plates, we eliminate 98% of the time spent on these procedures to greatly speed up imaging experiments. We believe our cooling stage and immobilization approach will enable high-throughput studies, such as quantitative visual screens, on standard C. elegans microscope setups and workflows.

A few senior faculty, including Prof. Anne Hart, recently tested the cooling stage. They thought that the immobilization strength was comparable to azide and confirmed that it allowed blur-free fluorescence imaging at single-cell resolution.

We plan to order all the parts and guide people through the assembly process. Interested labs would only have to send a participant to Northeastern Univ. and cover the material costs. We constructed our prototype for about $500. We hope that bulk purchases may offset increased costs due to recent inflation.

If your lab is interested, please either email the lead grad student Yao Wang (wang.yao2@northeastern.edu). We will add you to an email list for further information as we pin down everything. 

A interesting WormArt created by this cooling stage can be seen here: https://twitter.com/chungneurolab/status/1487171249079939075?s=21&t=_D50Wr0EMAJ3K75Fs0eFZA

Our paper 'Transverse and axial resolution of femtosecond laser ablation' has been published in the Journal of Biophotonics. This study examines the transverse and axial resolution of laser surgery by deriving a simple theoretical model for laser ablation, measuring damage spots in agarose and glass, and assessing surgeries in single neurons of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. We also found that ablation at high numerical aperture near the threshold has an axial resolution that is similar to the transverse resolution. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jbio.202200042

We preprint a paper on Biorxiv, 'Immobilization of C. elegans on cultivation plates by thermoelectric cooling for high-throughput subcellular-resolution microscopy'. We found that a higher than conventional cold temperature immobilizes worms more effectively.

We preprint a paper on Biorxiv, 'Confocal imaging capacity on a widefield microscope using a spatial light modulator'. It is a low-cost while high performance microscopy technique.  It is now on Plos One. Link here.

11 Mar 2020-Our laboratory has published its second paper, in collaboration with Prof. Gal Haspel from Rutgers! The study compares different types of femtosecond lasers. 

28 Nov 2019-Our laboratory has published its first paper! The study details our work building and characterizing a device for converting single color microscopes to multicolor. 

18 April 2019-William "Nate" Cunningham, a first year computer scientist, joins the lab! Welcome, Nate!

17 April 2019-Congratulations to Yao Wang for successfully defending his M.S. thesis, "Feasibility experiments toward a high-throughput microscope platform  for neuroscience research in C. elegans".

8 April 2019-Congratulations to Prof. Chung for winning a Northeastern TIER 1 award! In collaboration with Prof. Armen Stepanyants (Northeastern Univ. Physics Dept.) he will develop a high-throughput platform for microscopy.

1 Jan 2019-Noa Grooms joins the lab as the second Ph.D. student! See People for more information.

11 Oct 2018-Installation of our short pulse laser! The Spectra-Physics Spirit laser outputs 4 W of power for single-cell surgeries.