A novel room concept for shared resource laboratories.

Shared resource laboratories/core facilities (SRLs) are centralized platforms that house and provide access to complex and expensive research equipment. Due to the highly complex nature of the instrumentation they support, SRLs have special environmental requirements for their laboratory space. Here, we describe the planning and establishment of a large light microscopy SRL, with a special focus on room layout, custom-designed air conditioning and vibration, which can also be adapted to proteomics, genomics, and flow or mass cytometry SRLs.

QUAREP-LiMi: A community-driven initiative to establish guidelines for quality assessment and reproducibility for instruments and images in light microscopy.

A modern day light microscope has evolved from a tool devoted to making primarily empirical observations to what is now a sophisticated , quantitative device that is an integral part of both physical and life science research. Nowadays, microscopes are found in nearly every experimental laboratory. However, despite their prevalent use in capturing and quantifying scientific phenomena, neither a thorough understanding of the principles underlying quantitative imaging techniques nor appropriate knowledge of how to calibrate, operate and maintain microscopes can be taken for granted.

A Joint Action in Times of Pandemic: The German BioImaging Recommendations for Operating Imaging Core Facilities During the SARS-Cov-2 Emergency.

Operating shared resource laboratories (SRLs) in times of pandemic is a challenge for research institutions. In a multiuser, high-turnover working space, the transmission of infectious agents is difficult to control. To address this challenge, imaging core facility managers being members of German BioImaging discussed how shared microscopes could be operated with minimal risk of spreading SARS-CoV-2 between users and staff.

Selective imaging of presynaptic activity in the mouse olfactory bulb shows concentration and structure dependence of odor responses in identified glomeruli.

More chemicals can be smelled than there are olfactory receptors for them, necessitating a combinatorial representation by somewhat broadly tuned receptors. To understand the perception of odor quality and concentration, it is essential to establish the nature of the receptor repertoires that are activated by particular odorants at particular concentrations. We have taken advantage of the one-to-one correspondence of glomeruli and olfactory receptor molecules in the mouse olfactory bulb to analyze the tuning properties of a major receptor population by high resolution calcium imaging of odor responses selectively in the presynaptic compartment of glomeruli.