Multidimensional fluorescence imaging across the scales
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Multidimensional fluorescence imaging across the scales
Wed, 08/06/2022 - 13:30 to 14:30
Speaker:
Prof. Paul French
Affiliation:
The Photonics Group, Imperial College London
Synopsis:
We are developing open multidimensional fluorescence microscopy instrumentation, including endomicroscopy, high content analysis (HCA), super-resolved microscopy, and optical projection tomography (OPT). We have particularly focused on FLIM/FRET to study molecular interactions and more recently on super-resolved microscopy using single molecule localisation microscopy (SMLM) to probe ultrastructure and molecular clustering. To provide a complementary label-free readout, we are developing semi-quantitative (single-shot) phase contrast imaging for cell segmentation, tracking and morphology quantification. For our current and future instrumentation, we are developing a modular open-source microscopy platform based on openFrame, a low-cost, modular, open microscopy hardware platform to be used with open-source software tools, including MicroManager and FIJI, for instrument control, data acquisition, analysis and management, in order to make them practical in lower resource settings. We are particularly focussing on implementing our techniques in an open-source HCA platform for more robust cell biology studies.
For FLIM/FRET HCA, we have developed an automated multiwell plate FLIM platform utilising open-source software for data acquisition and analysis, which we have applied to assay protein interactions, including applications to viral disease processes. For super-resolved HCA, we are developing automated multiwell plate easySTORM, providing low-cost, large FOV SMLM together with accelerated open-source SMLM analysis parallelised on a high-performance computing cluster. We have applied easySTORM in studies of defective phagocytosis, cancer and kidney disease. Other open microscopy developments include a low-cost modular OPT platform that can image mm-cm scale samples, including live zebrafish, and can provide single-shot volumetric imaging.
Biography:
Paul French was a Physics undergraduate at Imperial in 1980 and has continued as a PhD student, post-doctoral researcher and member of the academic staff. He has also worked as a Visiting Professor at the University of New Mexico and as a Consultant at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ. His research interests have evolved from ultrafast dye and solid-state laser physics to interdisciplinary biomedical optics-based research including coherence-gated imaging through turbid media and fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) for applications in molecular cell biology, drug discovery and clinical diagnosis. His current research includes the development of multidimensional fluorescence imaging for microscopy, endoscopy and tomography. Paul served as Head of the Photonics Group in the Physics Department from 2001-2013 and is now Vice Dean (Research) for the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Imperial College London.