Magnifying research efforts
A mere three months after it had opened last June, the Centre for Microscopy (CMAC) was setting its sights on expansion.
“Most of our eight microscopes are already booked solid during working hours,” says CMAC’s co-director Christopher Brett.
Brett and co-director Alisa Piekny organized CMAC, which is in the Richard J. Renaud Science Complex, to amalgamate existing resources. The assistant professors in the Department of Biology had each received significant funds from the Canada Foundation for Innovation to buy a high-tech microscope for their research. “As soon as our colleagues heard, some asked if they could use them occasionally,” Brett says. “We decided to establish a centre to optimize the use of all the available microscopes.”
Twenty-six faculty members from biology, chemistry and biochemistry, physics, psychology, and exercise science promptly expressed an interest on behalf of their students and/or their own research.
Lab manager Gabriel Lapointe and research associate Chloë van Oostende handle training, scheduling and maintenance. They've already trained more than 50 people with another 150 users expected to request training at some point in the near future. Requests are usually met within a week. Training can take up to three sessions lasting two hours each, depending on the microscope’s complexity.
“We ask researchers to explain their project so we can determine which microscope and techniques best suit their needs,” Brett says.
Two microscopes are basic models, used for simple imaging. Two of the four wide-field microscopes that use fluorescent lights are for viewing fixed specimens (usually sealed between glass slides for repeated observation), and two are specifically designed to look at live cells and tissue. The final two have lasers that can focus on a narrow area and create three-dimensional images of samples.
Both laser microscopes can magnify a specimen up to 1,000 times, which enables Piekny to view proteins within a small region of a single cell. “The rapid laser beam takes images at one-second or faster intervals so I can see how proteins behave in real time,” she says.
Piekny is researching how proteins must be coordinated for a cell to divide properly. She tags the different proteins with colours that emit different wavelengths of fluorescent light so that she can track their movement. The research could improve drug treatments that target cancer cells.
Fluorescent lights enable Brett to observe how cells internalize outside elements and important signal proteins that function as surface receptors. His research is obtaining a better understanding of the role of these surface receptors in cellular communication and how mutations that affect their internalization could be the cause of such developmental disorders as autism.
Other research projects include examining immunity response, determining plant stress caused by drought, and strengthening the carbon fibres within construction materials.
Recognized last January by the Faculty of Arts and Science, CMAC is now applying for university-wide status to receive operational funding. “It’s expensive to run microscopes,” Piekny says. “We charge fees but want to keep them affordable.”
By demonstrating maximum efficiency and benefit, CMAC also hopes to improve its chances of receiving equipment grants from government funding agencies.
“We’d really like another laser microscope and two super-resolution scopes with an 80-nanometre spatial resolution within the next year or two,” Brett says.
Related links:
• Centre for Microscopy at Concordia (CMAC)
• Christopher Brett’s Laboratory
• The Piekny Lab