Confocal Microscopy List

commercial TIRF system

Classic

List

Threaded

6 messages Options

Jean-Pierre CLAMME-2

commercial TIRF system

*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
*****

Hi,

I would like to get inputs about commercial turn Key, TIRF systems for
single molecule particle tracking. I'm looking for a system that is
relatively easy to operate and could be put in a core facility.

Please let me know what you think about some you worked with and liked or
disliked.

Thank you

JP

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Jean-Pierre CLAMME, PhD
Chief Scientist
Nitto Denko Technical
501 Via Del Monte
Oceanside, CA 92058
E-mail: [hidden email]
Phone: +760.435.7065

Csúcs Gábor

Re: commercial TIRF system

*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
*****

Dear Jean-Pierre,

This is a difficult question as currently there are at least 10 turn-key
system providers and the actual choice depends very much on your budget,
preference in terms of software/hardware functionality and of course the
available service at your location. I can tell you the following:

1) 2 years ago we looked quite carefully at the field and and have chosen
the Leica solution, because probably this is one of the systems which is
the easiest to operate in a core facility and it has quite a number of
nice innovations that are (or were at that time) missing from other
systems.

2) Today I'd certainly take a look at the Till-photonics system and the
Applied Precision one (although I don't know whether they sell their
beam-rotating system outside of the OMX platform), because these are the
two commercial providers (I'm aware of) who really rotate the laser beam
at the back focal plane of the objective (the Leica systems can also
rotate it, but at a much lover speed) and hence get a very homogenous
illumination.

3) Of course if your want to do "only" single particle tracking, then the
field homogeneity is much less important and probably any commercial
system where you have a back-illuminated EM-CCD as detector will give you
the sensitivity you need.

Greetings Gabor

Light Microscopy and Screening Centre
ETH Zurich, HPM G41
Schafmattstrasse 18
CH-8093, Zurich
Switzerland

Phone: +41 44 633 6221
Mobile: +41 79 7582158

On 5/17/12 3:38 AM, "Jean-Pierre CLAMME"
<[hidden email]> wrote:

>*****
>To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
>http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
>*****
>
>Hi,
>
>I would like to get inputs about commercial turn Key, TIRF systems for
>single molecule particle tracking. I'm looking for a system that is
>relatively easy to operate and could be put in a core facility.
>
>Please let me know what you think about some you worked with and liked or
>disliked.
>
>Thank you
>
>JP
>
>
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>Jean-Pierre CLAMME, PhD
>Chief Scientist
>Nitto Denko Technical
>501 Via Del Monte
>Oceanside, CA 92058
>E-mail: [hidden email]
>Phone: +760.435.7065

George McNamara

Re: commercial TIRF system

In reply to this post by Jean-Pierre CLAMME-2

*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
*****

Hi JP,

Price-wise, check out the http://www.tirftechnologies.com/ hardware.
for SMD see appnote
http://www.tirftechnologies.com/articles/single_molecule_detection/Single_Molecule_Detection.pdf

TIRF (and confocal) is soooo 1990's - check out the Vutara SR-200
fluorescence nanoscope - it also does SMD. http://vutara.com/

George

On 5/16/2012 9:38 PM, Jean-Pierre CLAMME wrote:

> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> *****
>
> Hi,
>
> I would like to get inputs about commercial turn Key, TIRF systems for
> single molecule particle tracking. I'm looking for a system that is
> relatively easy to operate and could be put in a core facility.
>
> Please let me know what you think about some you worked with and liked or
> disliked.
>
> Thank you
>
> JP
>
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Jean-Pierre CLAMME, PhD
> Chief Scientist
> Nitto Denko Technical
> 501 Via Del Monte
> Oceanside, CA 92058
> E-mail: [hidden email]
> Phone: +760.435.7065
>
>

John Oreopoulos

Re: commercial TIRF system

*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
*****

George, it goes back much further than the 1990's. I'm preparing a talk for the Montreal Light Microscopy Course on TIRF microscopy and found these:

Hirschfeld, T., Total reflection fluorescence. Canadian Journal of Spectroscopy, 1965. 10:I28 .
Hirschfeld, T., Optical microscopic observation of single small molecules. Applied Optics, 1976. 15(12): p. 2965-2966.

Dave Piston also made me aware of a much older use of TIR illumination (without fluorescence) by Aime Cotton that goes back to 1897. Basically, this was a form of highly oblique illumination through a prism used to study the absorption of chiral molecules onto different surfaces.

Similar arguments could be used to say that confocal imaging goes back to the early 1980s, mid 1970's, or the 1960's if you include Minsky's design.

What's old is new and what's new is old again. Why do certain technologies like these get "rediscovered"? I think it has to do with the practicality of the instrumentation and all of the other supporting hardware that wasn't around initially or was too expensive. For example, lasers became cheaper and smaller, computers became cheaper/faster/powerful, and the detectors became a bit better, etc. And in the case of fluorescence imaging, the photoactivatable/photoswitchable fluorescent proteins didn't show up for a while longer. But ask yourself this: Was there anything really preventing any of us from doing super-resolution imaging (say by localization microscopy with bright organic dyes) in the 1990's? All of the technology/hardware and the probes to do this were there (even the concept of sub-pixel localization has its origins outside of biology before 2002 in remote sensing and astronomy - star mapping), but the ideas to put it all together just weren't fleshed out I guess. These things take time as the previous examples above show. The internet does a better job of propagating these ideas faster now, so maybe the lag won't be as big as it was before.

Doubtless, super-resolution imaging will become an important and common part of biological research someday (10, 20 years?). Many companies, including the one I'm employed with, are working furiously to make these "newer" super-resolution techniques more practical and more turnkey. However, in my humble opinion, "older" techniques like confocal, colocalization (diffraction-limited), TIRF, single particle tracking, FRET, FRAP, etc. will also still be used (maybe every lab will have their own personal confocal by then). And others have pointed out in other threads that these more traditional techniques themselves are still highly under-used today. Not every question to be answered by fluorescence imaging requires super-resolution. I think it really depends on what the researcher is trying to look at and understand. Heck, I've seen some amazing work done fairly recently with a basic epifluorescence microscope.

But I could be wrong... There's a nice paper in Bioessays on this topic:
Saka, S. and S.O. Rizzoli, Super-resolution imaging prompts re-thinking of cell biology mechanisms. Bioessays, 2012. 34(5): p. 386-395.

Let's see what happens. I'll reply to this posting in 10 years. If I'm wrong George, I'll buy you a beer.

John Oreopoulos
Research Assistant
Spectral Applied Research
Richmond Hill, Ontario
Canada
www.spectral.ca

On 2012-05-17, at 7:32 PM, George McNamara wrote:

> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> *****
>
> Hi JP,
>
> Price-wise, check out the http://www.tirftechnologies.com/ hardware. for SMD see appnote http://www.tirftechnologies.com/articles/single_molecule_detection/Single_Molecule_Detection.pdf
>
> TIRF (and confocal) is soooo 1990's - check out the Vutara SR-200 fluorescence nanoscope - it also does SMD. http://vutara.com/
>
>
> George
>
>
> On 5/16/2012 9:38 PM, Jean-Pierre CLAMME wrote:
>> *****
>> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
>> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
>> *****
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I would like to get inputs about commercial turn Key, TIRF systems for
>> single molecule particle tracking. I'm looking for a system that is
>> relatively easy to operate and could be put in a core facility.
>>
>> Please let me know what you think about some you worked with and liked or
>> disliked.
>>
>> Thank you
>>
>> JP
>>
>>
>> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>> Jean-Pierre CLAMME, PhD
>> Chief Scientist
>> Nitto Denko Technical
>> 501 Via Del Monte
>> Oceanside, CA 92058
>> E-mail: [hidden email]
>> Phone: +760.435.7065
>>
>>

Michal Opas

Re: commercial TIRF system

> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> *****
>
> George, it goes back much further than the 1990's. I'm preparing a talk for the Montreal Light Microscopy Course on TIRF microscopy and found these:
>
> Hirschfeld, T., Total reflection fluorescence. Canadian Journal of Spectroscopy, 1965. 10:I28 .
> Hirschfeld, T., Optical microscopic observation of single small molecules. Applied Optics, 1976. 15(12): p. 2965-2966.
>
> Dave Piston also made me aware of a much older use of TIR illumination (without fluorescence) by Aime Cotton that goes back to 1897. Basically, this was a form of highly oblique illumination through a prism used to study the absorption of chiral molecules onto different surfaces.
>
> Similar arguments could be used to say that confocal imaging goes back to the early 1980s, mid 1970's, or the 1960's if you include Minsky's design.
>
> What's old is new and what's new is old again. Why do certain technologies like these get "rediscovered"? I think it has to do with the practicality of the instrumentation and all of the other supporting hardware that wasn't around initially or was too expensive. For example, lasers became cheaper and smaller, computers became cheaper/faster/powerful, and the detectors became a bit better, etc. And in the case of fluorescence imaging, the photoactivatable/photoswitchable fluorescent proteins didn't show up for a while longer. But ask yourself this: Was there anything really preventing any of us from doing super-resolution imaging (say by localization microscopy with bright organic dyes) in the 1990's? All of the technology/hardware and the probes to do this were there (even the concept of sub-pixel localization has its origins outside of biology before 2002 in remote sensing and astronomy - star mapping), but the ideas to put it all together just weren't fleshed out I guess. These things take time as the previous examples above show. The internet does a better job of propagating these ideas faster now, so maybe the lag won't be as big as it was before.
>
> Doubtless, super-resolution imaging will become an important and common part of biological research someday (10, 20 years?). Many companies, including the one I'm employed with, are working furiously to make these "newer" super-resolution techniques more practical and more turnkey. However, in my humble opinion, "older" techniques like confocal, colocalization (diffraction-limited), TIRF, single particle tracking, FRET, FRAP, etc. will also still be used (maybe every lab will have their own personal confocal by then). And others have pointed out in other threads that these more traditional techniques themselves are still highly under-used today. Not every question to be answered by fluorescence imaging requires super-resolution. I think it really depends on what the researcher is trying to look at and understand. Heck, I've seen some amazing work done fairly recently with a basic epifluorescence microscope.
>
> But I could be wrong... There's a nice paper in Bioessays on this topic:
> Saka, S. and S.O. Rizzoli, Super-resolution imaging prompts re-thinking of cell biology mechanisms. Bioessays, 2012. 34(5): p. 386-395.
>
> Let's see what happens. I'll reply to this posting in 10 years. If I'm wrong George, I'll buy you a beer.
>
> John Oreopoulos
> Research Assistant
> Spectral Applied Research
> Richmond Hill, Ontario
> Canada
> www.spectral.ca
>
>
> On 2012-05-17, at 7:32 PM, George McNamara wrote:
>
>
>> *****
>> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
>> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
>> *****
>>
>> Hi JP,
>>
>> Price-wise, check out the http://www.tirftechnologies.com/ hardware. for SMD see appnote http://www.tirftechnologies.com/articles/single_molecule_detection/Single_Molecule_Detection.pdf
>>
>> TIRF (and confocal) is soooo 1990's - check out the Vutara SR-200 fluorescence nanoscope - it also does SMD. http://vutara.com/
>>
>>
>> George
>>
>>
>> On 5/16/2012 9:38 PM, Jean-Pierre CLAMME wrote:
>>
>>> *****
>>> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
>>> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
>>> *****
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I would like to get inputs about commercial turn Key, TIRF systems for
>>> single molecule particle tracking. I'm looking for a system that is
>>> relatively easy to operate and could be put in a core facility.
>>>
>>> Please let me know what you think about some you worked with and liked or
>>> disliked.
>>>
>>> Thank you
>>>
>>> JP
>>>
>>>
>>> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>>> Jean-Pierre CLAMME, PhD
>>> Chief Scientist
>>> Nitto Denko Technical
>>> 501 Via Del Monte
>>> Oceanside, CA 92058
>>> E-mail: [hidden email]
>>> Phone: +760.435.7065
>>>
>>>
>>>

--

* Dr. Michal Opas
Professor
Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology
University of Toronto
1 King's College Circle
Medical Sciences Building, room 6326
Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A8 Canada

**°°°°°°°°°°°°°**
phone: (416) 978-8947 (laboratory)
(416) 971-2140 (office)
fax: (416) 978-5959
e*-*mail: **[hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>***

*WWW**:** **http://www.utoronto.ca/mocell
*

Jean-Pierre CLAMME-2

Re: commercial TIRF system

In reply to this post by John Oreopoulos

*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
*****

Thank you all for your input.

I agree with you John, Super resolution is very nice but not accessible to
everyone yet and as you said not all studies need that kind of resolution.

Thank you again,

JP

Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]> wrote on
05/18/2012 06:27:18 AM:

> John Oreopoulos <[hidden email]>
> Sent by: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]>
>
> 05/18/2012 06:28 AM
>
> Please respond to
> Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]>
>
> To
>
> [hidden email]
>
> cc
>
> Subject
>
> Re: commercial TIRF system
>
> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> *****

> George, it goes back much further than the 1990's. I'm preparing a
> talk for the Montreal Light Microscopy Course on TIRF microscopy and
> found these:

> Hirschfeld, T., Total reflection fluorescence. Canadian Journal of
> Spectroscopy, 1965. 10:I28 .
> Hirschfeld, T., Optical microscopic observation of single small
> molecules. Applied Optics, 1976. 15(12): p. 2965-2966.

> Dave Piston also made me aware of a much older use of TIR
> illumination (without fluorescence) by Aime Cotton that goes back to
> 1897. Basically, this was a form of highly oblique illumination
> through a prism used to study the absorption of chiral molecules
> onto different surfaces.

> Similar arguments could be used to say that confocal imaging goes
> back to the early 1980s, mid 1970's, or the 1960's if you include
> Minsky's design.

> What's old is new and what's new is old again. Why do certain
> technologies like these get "rediscovered"? I think it has to do
> with the practicality of the instrumentation and all of the other
> supporting hardware that wasn't around initially or was too
> expensive. For example, lasers became cheaper and smaller, computers
> became cheaper/faster/powerful, and the detectors became a bit
> better, etc. And in the case of fluorescence imaging, the
> photoactivatable/photoswitchable fluorescent proteins didn't show up
> for a while longer. But ask yourself this: Was there anything really
> preventing any of us from doing super-resolution imaging (say by
> localization microscopy with bright organic dyes) in the 1990's? All
> of the technology/hardware and the probes to do this were there
> (even the concept of sub-pixel localization has its origins outside
> of biology before 2002 in remote sensing and astronomy - star
> mapping), but the ideas to put it all together just weren't fleshed
> out I guess. These things take time as the previous examples above
> show. The internet does a better job of propagating these ideas
> faster now, so maybe the lag won't be as big as it was before.

> Doubtless, super-resolution imaging will become an important and
> common part of biological research someday (10, 20 years?). Many
> companies, including the one I'm employed with, are working
> furiously to make these "newer" super-resolution techniques more
> practical and more turnkey. However, in my humble opinion, "older"
> techniques like confocal, colocalization (diffraction-limited),
> TIRF, single particle tracking, FRET, FRAP, etc. will also still be
> used (maybe every lab will have their own personal confocal by
> then). And others have pointed out in other threads that these more
> traditional techniques themselves are still highly under-used today.
> Not every question to be answered by fluorescence imaging requires
> super-resolution. I think it really depends on what the researcher
> is trying to look at and understand. Heck, I've seen some amazing
> work done fairly recently with a basic epifluorescence microscope.

> But I could be wrong... There's a nice paper in Bioessays on this topic:
> Saka, S. and S.O. Rizzoli, Super-resolution imaging prompts re-
> thinking of cell biology mechanisms. Bioessays, 2012. 34(5): p. 386-395.

> Let's see what happens. I'll reply to this posting in 10 years. If
> I'm wrong George, I'll buy you a beer.

> John Oreopoulos
> Research Assistant
> Spectral Applied Research
> Richmond Hill, Ontario
> Canada
> www.spectral.ca

>
> On 2012-05-17, at 7:32 PM, George McNamara wrote:

> > *****
> > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> > http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> > *****
> >
> > Hi JP,
> >
> > Price-wise, check out the http://www.tirftechnologies.com/
> hardware. for SMD see appnote http://www.tirftechnologies.com/
> articles/single_molecule_detection/Single_Molecule_Detection.pdf
> >
> > TIRF (and confocal) is soooo 1990's - check out the Vutara SR-200
> fluorescence nanoscope - it also does SMD. http://vutara.com/
> >
> >
> > George
> >
> >
> > On 5/16/2012 9:38 PM, Jean-Pierre CLAMME wrote:
> >> *****
> >> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> >> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> >> *****
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I would like to get inputs about commercial turn Key, TIRF systems

for
> >> single molecule particle tracking. I'm looking for a system that is
> >> relatively easy to operate and could be put in a core facility.
> >>
> >> Please let me know what you think about some you worked with and
liked or

> >> disliked.
> >>
> >> Thank you
> >>
> >> JP
> >>
> >>
> >> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> >> Jean-Pierre CLAMME, PhD
> >> Chief Scientist
> >> Nitto Denko Technical
> >> 501 Via Del Monte
> >> Oceanside, CA 92058
> >> E-mail: [hidden email]
> >> Phone: +760.435.7065
> >>
> >>