The Department of Cell and Developmental Biology is continually seeking to upgrade and maintain its facilities at the highest possible level in order to provide a superior research and teaching environment for faculty, staff and students.
The Center for Bioresearch Imaging, an interdepartmental facility located in and maintained by the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, is designed to aid researchers and educators in acquiring and processing images. The flagship of the facility is a Bio-Rad MRC-1024 confocal microscope mounted on a Nikon Eclipse 600 microscope. The facility also has two photomicroscopes, a Nikon Eclipse 800 and Nikon FX, capable of photographing brightfield, fluorescent and DIC (Differential Interference Contrast) images onto 35 mm film or a high resolution Spot RT digital camera. The Imaging Center also contains a flatbed scanner, a slide scanner and a film recorder controlled by two up-to-date Macintosh computers loaded with the latest versions of imaging and image-processing software. Publication quality images can printed from a Tektronix Phaser 740E color laser printer or a Kodak XLS 8600 dye-sublimation printer.
The Department of Cell and Developmental Biology has an EM complex maintained by a full-time specialist. The facility contains two JEOL-100CX transmission electron microscopes, one of which is equipped with an ASID attachment for scanning. Peripheral equipment includes a Reichert-Jung FC4E and several Dupont MT2-B ultramicrotomes for sectioning both frozen and plastic embedded specimens, a Cressington CFE-50 freeze fracture apparatus, and a fully equipped darkroom for developing and printing EM films.
The department owns a Molecular Dynamics Storm 840 Phosphorimager driven by a Macintosh G3 computer running Imagequant Software for accurate quantification of radioactive or fluorescent labeled material.
In a continuing commitment to the teaching mission, a total renovation of
the Gross Anatomy Student Laboratory was completed in 2003.
The two year project gives SUNY Upstate Medical University students,
faculty and staff a state of the art facility for study and research in
the anatomical
sciences. The design of this new area brings the main laboratory, preparation
rooms, radiology viewing areas, demonstration rooms, anatomy library and
museum,
locker rooms and faculty and staff offices into one centralized location.
In addition to the dual view microscopes and microprojectors used in the Microscopic Anatomy teaching labs, the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology has recently acquired an Hamamatsu CCD (video camera) mounted onto a Nikon Eclipse 400 microscope. High quality images of histological sections are projected for viewing in both small group and auditorium settings.
