Although,
the world around us mainly percepted through eyes, we forget the fact
that our eyes are like small cameras, living optical devices whose
lenses, drawing pictures on the retina, obey to the same physical laws
which describe the behaviour of a polished piece of glass, the
collecting lens.
There is no comparable discovery of humanity like
the collecting lens. The immense outer space and the infinite small can
be viewed by lenses. Only by means of lenses, Galilei brought us the
boundless universe and, Leeuwenhoek discovered living creatures not
bigger than a few microns. The polished glasses really meant a
revolution to the relationship of humans and their environment. With
microscope lenses, one can have a closer look to nature and observe
details which are usually out of sight and hidden from our busy daily
life.
Are you interested in exploring the „small world”?
You can visit now the bioimaging core facility of our university. The
long-desired microscope center has been established in the Muthgasse
complex and harbours five high-end microscopes: two video microscopes,
one of them dedicated to live cell imaging; the other one is designed
for total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy, two confocal
laser scanning microscopes and a laser microdissection microscope.
Confocal microscopes are for better resolution in
space, for example to study chromatin structure in nuclei.
Video-microscopy, as its name suggests, serves as a camera to shoot
movies from your samples. It provides excellent time resolution at the
expense of some structural details. The live cell imaging platform is a
hybrid system: one may use it like a video-microscope or, it can be
transformed into a confocal one by attaching a laser scanning module to
the stativ. Soon, an incubation chamber will complete the workstation to
provide convenient growth temperature, CO2 and humidity for live
samples. This system might become the favourite of neurologists and
developmental biologists enabling them long lasting observations in
natural conditions. With the arsenal of the imaging center students,
professors, scientists are able to visualize, isolate and study fine
structures of various objects and materials, not necessarily biological
ones. It is possible to quantify and follow movements of microorganisms,
organelles and even single molecules. Spatial and temporal changes of
protein interactions, quantification of internal pH, redox potentials,
concentration of ions, such as Calcium, and of molecules, such as
glucose, will be possible to measure as long as their presence can be
converted into fluorescent signals. Last but not least, one can feel the
sensation of making surgery with a laser knife of the microdissecting
microscope. This system allows you to separate and to collect specific
regions of your sample, for example tumorous cells from tissues. By
cutting a teeny-weeny part of a given specimen for further analysis, one
may perform single cell DNA, RNA tests.
The imaging facility is open to all scientists and
aims to initiate cooperations even beyond the BOKU. Welcome are
cooperations to test innovative ideas and develop new microscopic
methods.
The center is headed by Dr Monika Debreczeny a
physicist (MD and PhD in physics) with almost twenty years of experience
in scientific research and running imaging laboratories in Hungary and
in France. Do not hesitate to discuss your projects personally or by
calling 47654 6951. You can find the BOKU-VIBT imaging center in
Muthgasse 11, room A-UG02-O02 and the office of Dr. Monika Debreczeny is
located in room 3-EG/G09. Within the first Quarter of the New Year,
Monika wants to start the regular operation of the new facility with
homepage, courses and booking system.
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