Laboratory of Optical Fluorescence Microscopy Methods

Course at glance
The practical course will introduce at the use of the most advanced and modern microscopy  techniques, using the microscopes at the Nikon Imaging Center (NIC@IIT).

Instructor
Marta D’Amora marta.damora@iit.it  
Tel: +39 010 71 781 290
Nanophysics, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia

Credits: 3

Synopsis
The goal of the course is to teach and train fundamental knowledge and skills in microscopy.

Students will learn how to apply these techniques to their own present and future projects.
Practical work consists of 4 different modules covering a specific technique/topic (see syllabus). Students will participate to all practical modules. For the practical training the students will use the most state-of-the-art instrumentation. Such an instrumentation is able to cover all the fundamental needs of modern biology, namely high temporal and/or spatial resolution, live cell imaging and multimodal microscopy. A fundamental step for the success
of  super resolution experiments relay on the sample  preparation.

Nevertheless, these protocols preparation show many common aspects with standards protocols, some critical steps need to be added. These critical steps will be discussed in the course.

Syllabus  
The Course develops in about 9 hours in the lab.

Hands on:
- Time lapse
- Spinning disk
- Confocal A1 Nikon
- SIM and/or STORM

The examination consists in a report on the experiments carried on during the course.

Reading list,  
Please  refer  to  the  Educational  Program  Section  of  the  NIC@IIT  -
http://www.nic.iit.it/education-program-training/
Specific textbooks for this Course are:
- A.Diaspro (ed.), Confocal and Two-Photon Microscopy: Foundations, Applications and  Advances, Wiley (2001)
- A.Diaspro (ed.) Optical Fluorescence Microscopy, Springer (2011)
- A.Diaspro  (ed.)  Nanoscopy  and  Multidimensional  Optical  Fluorescence  Microscopy,
Taylor and Francis/cHapmann and Hall/CRC (2009)
- J.Pawley (ed.) Handbook of Confocal Microscopy, Springer (2006)

Venue
NIC@IIT, IIT - Via Morego, 30 16163 Genova

Course date
June 2017