BIF update wk 36, 2019

Dear Colleagues,

We again want to share with you what is going on in the bioimaging facility for week 36, …

GENERAL:

  • Downtime systems in LBE: today the electrical system maintenance has been completed in the basement of LBE. Many thanks for your cooperation: all systems were shut down already, which sped up the works significantly 🙂 –  Tomorrow 03.09.2019 (between 6 to 9 a.m. all workstations in in LBE need to be shut down!
  • Reduced BIF service: due to an SSU event, there will be reduced BIF and FACS service on Friday September 6, 2019
  • Facility cleaning: we will perform a central facility cleaning on Friday, September 27, 2019. Please make sure to finish your experiments in time.
    • between 9-12 am all systems in Bertalanffy Building (i04) are blocked.
    • between 1-14 p.m. all systems in Lab west (i06) are blocked.
  • Workstation rooms: please make sure to close the windows in the image analysis rooms at the end of the day!! – we are receiving complaints from construction and maintenance. We also find a lot of dead flies on the desks the next day. In case there are no improvements, it is likely that the windows will be locked by construction and maintenance.

TEACH & TECH:

  • Seminar: Tuesday, September 3rd , 2019, we are hosting a seminar about optical tweezers (3 p.m., seminar room ground floor, LBE). Ann Mukhortava from LUMICKS will talk about the high-resolution single-molecule microscope – C-trap, that combines confocal/STED/IRM and TIRF/Widefield fluorescence microscopy with optical tweezers to manipulate and visualize single-molecules, vesicles, and cells. more info
  • Microscope course: The microscopy course is now listed in Graduate school WordPress page (sub-topic others) – registration starts on September 16th via the graduate school course IQ-page. Participants registered as ‘ students’  join for ECTS credits and have priority for hands-on session and need to complete a test at the end of the course. All others participants will need to register as audit students – you can join lectures and we will fill up vacant hands-on spots by order of registration

EQUIPMENT & REPAIRS:

  • AFM: the AFM nanowizard scan-head is still under repair (the cell-heasion head is available)
  • CO2 incubator i04.U1.019: the incubator maintenance is planned for September for 5th: please make sure that you remove your samples! – no other expected interference with experiments
  • LSM800-01:  downgraded to ZEN 2.3 for increased stability. Previous images cannot be reused (!).
  • LSM800-02: downgraded  to ZEN 2.3 for increased stability. Previous images cannot be reused (!). Despite multiple calibrations the digital gain need to be set manually (although it can also be done in post processing)
  • LSM800-05: The issues with joystick and stage controller have been fixed – the main board of the microscope controller has been exchanged
  • LSM800-06: software has been upgraded to ZEN 2.6 Hotfix-7. the issues with bidirectional scanning have been reported to Zeiss. No striping detected up to scanning-speed 5, (higher scan-speed will cause striping). One-directional scanning is not affected.
  • LSM880up: we have sent in the 20x/ NA 1.0 dipping objective for repair and managed to get a replacement. Please be extremely careful when using the loan-objective. Please also always report any damage to any kind of equipment!
  • Olympus TIRF: a new 405 laser will be installed on Monday September 9th, 2019 – the camera freeze-issue is under investigation with Olympus.

ADDITIONAL:

  • Interesting figure application; biorender is a nice application when you need to make figures (fees might apply upon publication)
  • Job opportunity: there are two positions vacant positions for a microscopy specialist and an image analysis specialist in the microscopy facility of CEITEC MU, Brno, Czech Republic.  more info