CTSC:TTIC.033010

Back to Collaboration:Harvard_CTSC

1. Consultation: new request: My dissertation is researching the back of the normal eye. Would you recommend where I could use a microscope that has X-Y automatic platform so that I could use tiling to make a composite picture of the entire retina or eye-cup flatmount? The blood vessels are stained fluorescent green (FITC), the cells are fluorescent red (Alexa 568) and the nuclei infared (TOPRO-3). So far I have been able to image them with an old Leica Confocal using a Z-stack of 25 - 30 um thickness for a flatmount of just the retinal, 50 um for the whole eye-cup with optic nerve attached. 25X immersion objective had high resolution and a long working distance that allowed visualization of the blood vessels wrapped around the optic nerve. 40X - 63X distinguish nuclei of these irregularly shaped cells from high background around the optic disc.

My preliminary test run with deconvolution in OpenLab on images made on our regular fluorescent microscope, a Leica DM-RXA, may mean that it is not be necessary that the microscope be confocal, as long as it has an automated Z control. On another note, would 3-D Slicer be useful for reconstructing an image of the back of the eye from a combination of confocal microscope z-stack images and OCT (sonic-based imaging)?

2. Education program:
a. update on 2nd cardiovascular session and 1st oncology session
b. policy for file sharing
c. New material for hands-on workshops
3. RSNA education proposal and reading room of the future
4. Multi-center trial