The Centre for Cancer Therapeutics has a microscopy facility that is available to all at The Institute’s Sutton site and to outside collaborators on a re-charge basis. The facility is run by Nina Perusinghe, a member of the Cell Growth Regulation and Angiogenesis Team, who oversees and maintains the facility, provides advice, technical support and training for various immunocytochemical techniques.

The facility comprises of the following microscopes:

• Leitz Diaplan light upright microscope with a DC320 colour digital camera. Used for viewing fixed processed sections stained with haematoxylin and eosin (H&E) or for immunohistochemical analysis.

• Leitz DM IRB fluorescent inverted microscope with DC100 Digital Camera. It has filters to view FITC, TRITC. This is used for viewing live cell cultures with or without fluorescent dyes.

• Nikon Eclipse E600W fluorescent upright microscope with a Hamamatsu monochrome video camera. This has the simplePCI automatic image capture software and filters for FITC,TRITC and DAPI.

• Leica SP1 Laser scanning microscope. Images from fixed and stained samples with one or more fluorescent probes are produced by scanning a laser beam across the specimen. This enables automated collection of 3-dimensional data in a form of a Z series of sections. SP1 has 3 lasers. Argon, excitation  at 488nM (FITC), Krypton, excitation at 568nM (TRITC) and HeNe excitation at 633nM (TOPRO3).