Re: Usefulness of super-resolution?

Posted by Oliver Biehlmaier-2 on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/Usefulness-of-super-resolution-tp7587169p7587184.html

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Dear all,

Thank you for compiling that list.
I think what it shows is that biological discoveries dependent on the availability of super-resolution light microscopy methods were (so far) mainly achieved by groups that are developing super-resolution microscopy and are thus at the forefront of SR since years.

From our facility experience, I confirm Gabor’s observation: Most of the users (>10) that we had at our 3D-SIM system requested only a few assisted imaging slots to acquire this additional “nice image” for publication. So far (in almost 5 years of usage) only 2 groups were really dependent on 3D-SIM in order to answer one of the key questions in  their project (e.g. visualise a specific protein localisation; Roth et al, Nat Commun, 2015, PMID: 25791062).
However, I have the impression that the number of users that are willing to dive into a project that is mainly based on super-resolution microscopy is about to grow. I guess that this number will increase with the simplification of super-resolution microscope usage. Most of the researchers are capable to provide almost perfect samples for super-resolution (following a provided protocol) but only few are willing to learn the physical basics needed to run the experiment on the microscope themselves.

Best,
Oliver



Oliver Biehlmaier, PhD | Head of Imaging Core Facility  | Biozentrum, University of Basel | Klingelbergstrasse 50/70 | CH-4056 Basel
Phone: [phone] | Email: [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> | www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/imcf<http://www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/imcf> | www.microscopynetwork.unibas.ch<http://www.microscopynetwork.unibas.ch>




On 19 Aug 2017, at 16:46, Csúcs Gábor <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:

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Dear All,

I would have a slightly provocative question to the community: Could you help me to identify significant/major biological discoveries that were clearly dependent on the availability of various super-resolution light microscopy methods? The PNAS paper from the Zhuang lab (2016) about the actin-spectrin ring is a good example for me but I am looking for further ones. Of course, we also use super-resolution techniques in our facility but my observation is that these are used rather to provide "one nice image for a publication" or "another piece in the puzzle of evidences" but they are not "game winners", they were not necessarily the major piece of evidence to prove a biological hypothesis. So I am looking for biological questions that could be answered "only"/mostly by the existing super-resolution methods.
Thanks a lot for your help!

Greetings Gabor