Zeiss Confocal Microscope with Airyscan for Einstein Neural Cell Engineering and Imaging Core

This proposal seeks funding to purchase the Zeiss confocal LSM 880 microscope with Airyscan for the Neural Cell Engineering and Imaging Core (NCEI) of the Rose F Kennedy Center for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research (IDDR) at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Einstein). This Core has existed at Einstein for over 30 years as a shared resource, and has received strong financial support over this time from the Kennedy IDDR Center, funded by NIH/NICHD Center grants, and from the Department of Neuroscience. While the NCEI Core is open to all Einstein Investigators, the Core?s confocal facility has served as a primary and key resource for Neuroscience faculty and IDDR Center investigators, a tightly-­knit highly-­interactive group. The Airyscan technology which provides super-­resolution capability has several advantages over other super-­resolution approaches that make it particularly ideal for the diversity of specimens and applications of our multi-­user group. Some of these advantages include no limitations posed by special requirements for specimen preparation, fluorophore selection, mounting media or buffers, and the ability to perform well with thick as well as thin specimens. Furthermore, the technology fundamentally utilizes a laser point-­ scanning confocal approach but is able to flexibly improve on sensitivity, speed of acquisition and/or resolution with significantly heightened signal-­to-­noise ratio. The group of investigators identified here will take advantage of the Airyscan characteristics and capabilities, many of which deal with thicker specimens and need superior resolution in looking at, for example, vesicular organelles and co-­localization, dendritic spines, pre-­ and post-­synaptic sites and their molecular components, and other fine structures. These investigators are involved in both basic studies of brain development and function, and in research directly targeted at human health including Alzheimer disease, Huntington disease, schizophrenia, Fragile X Syndrome and other Autism Spectrum disorders, brain ischemia, and lysosomal storage diseases. The proposed microscope will provide a unique new technology for Einstein, and serve as a vital asset for Einstein?s biomedical research community at large to help stay competitive in this era of powerful new optical imaging approaches.