Electron Microscopy Facility (Cellular Imaging Core, SWEHSC)

AHSC Imaging Facility

• Location: Life Sciences North 410 (see map)
• Contact: Peggy McCuskey, 626-6009
• Administration: Arizona Research Laboratories, Biotechnology Division
• Fees for use : See below for examples.
• WWW: http://imaging.arl.arizona.edu/

Reminder: SWEHSC Investigators (including their staff and students) should contact the Cellular Imaging Core directly for assistance with planning experiments, questions regarding specimen handling, and assistance with analysis or the interpretation of results.

Main Campus Imaging Facility

The equipment described below is for the AHSC Imaging facility. The main campus facility, located in the basement of the Marley building, includes equipment for Light Microscopy, TEM, SEM and X-ray microanalysis. For more information about the main campus imaging facility, contact David Bentley, 621-5097.

Fees for Services (University of Arizona users)

This is a full service lab. Users typically drop off samples and provide the lab with any special handling instructions. Users then can come back to operate the microscopes (with training), or have the lab photograph their samples and provide prints.

Selected fees (call the facility for more detailed information):

Service	Transmission EM	Scanning EM
Process samples	$8/sample (plus an additional $8 to process the group of samples)	$8/sample (plus an additional $8 to process the group of samples)
1 micron, semi-thin sections	$8/slide	N/A
Thin sections	$15/block	N/A
Microscope hourly fees	$25/hr	$25/hr
Microscopy performed by facility staff	$34/hr	$50/hr
Prints	check with the lab for current film/paper prices	No additional cost for digital images, Polaroid prints are $2/each

Phillips CM-12s Transmission Electron Microscope

Capabilities: The microscope can perform transmission electron microscopy (TEM), as well as scanning (SEM) & scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). TEM of plastic embedded biological tissues typically has a maximum resolution of approximately 25 nm. In the summer of 2006 an AMT digital camera was added to this microscope. Images can be saved in Tif format. Contact Dr. David Elliott (626-7870) for training to use the camera.

Advantages: Provides extremely high resolution images of well preserved tissue.

Disadvantages: The technique is expensive and often takes >2 weeks to receive photomicrographs of tissues. Interpretation of the data requires experience in ultrastructural analysis (available from the Cellular Imaging Core).

FEI-Phillips XL30 Scanning Electron Microscope

Capabilities: The microscope can perform scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with output to either traditional Polaroid film ($2/ea), video printer, or digital images (100MB ZIP drive is available). The instrument has secondary electron, and back-scattered electron detectors.

Advantages: Provides the ability to study surface topography at high resolution.

Disadvantages: Specimen preparation typically requires critical point drying. It is difficult to measure SEM images for topography differences.