A multiphoton imaging facility for in vitro and in vivo studies of CNS function and disease (360G-Wellcome-202936_Z_16_Z)

This proposal seeks funding to establish a multiuser, multiphoton biological imaging facility. This will be largely, but not exclusively, used to support neurobiological research at the University Exeter. Although enjoying a considerable degree of biological imaging expertise the university presently has no multiphoton fluorescence facilities. This bid will not only eliminate this shortfall but will provide a truly cutting edge facility for use by a broad range of Exeter’s bioscientific community. The equipment purchased will also enable us to establish a coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) imaging facility available to multiple users- which we believe would be the first multiuser facility for this form of non-linear label free imaging in the UK. The system will be housed in the imaging wing of the University of Exeter’s new Living Systems Institute a 7 storey building due to open in 2016 https://www.exeter.ac.uk/livingsystems/building/about/. This facility will contain 2 independent work stations, both fed by the output of single, widely tuneable, dual beam, laser source (e.g. Spectraphysics Insight DS+ or Chameleon Discovery). These represent the state-of-the-art in terms of power output, pulse length and dispersion correction. Importantly they offer tuning across the widest range of near infrared wavelengths (circa 680-1300 nm).