Axio Zoom V16 upgrade & light sources

Description

The Bioimaging and Flow Cytometry Facility supports research conducted at the Roslin Institute, as well as external academic and industry users (>180 PhD students, >600 staff, and >75 group leaders, clinical research associates, and tenure-track fellows with active research programmes). An important aspect of the facility's workflow is compliance with health and safety and data safety guidelines and policies. The use of mercury bulbs is being phased out due to health and safety concerns associated with working with mercury sources and the environmental impact of disposal. These bulbs will no longer be available for purchase. The Roslin Institute currently has five microscopes that still use mercury bulbs. An application was made to allocate funding to replace these remaining mercury lamps. This request was approved, and quotes were obtained for replacing the HXP mercury light sources on the Zeiss LSM880 confocal microscope, the Zeiss Elyra 7 microscope, the Zeiss Axio Observer, and the Zeiss V16 AxioZoom. These light sources are integrated into a Zeiss-managed operating system and service agreement, which means that Zeiss is the only supplier in this instance. Part of the university's data safety policy is to ensure that data is not saved locally, instead, it must be transferred to secure network storage. The Zeiss AxioZoom V16 PC was no longer compliant with this policy. The upgrade for the AxioZoom includes a new PC that enables users to export data securely Lot 1: The Bioimaging and Flow Cytometry Facility supports research conducted at the Roslin Institute, as well as external academic and industry users (>180 PhD students, >600 staff, and >75 group leaders, clinical research associates, and tenure-track fellows with active research programmes). An important aspect of the facility's workflow is compliance with health and safety and data safety guidelines and policies. The use of mercury bulbs is being phased out due to health and safety concerns associated with working with mercury sources and the environmental impact of disposal. These bulbs will no longer be available for purchase. The Roslin Institute currently has five microscopes that still use mercury bulbs. An application was made to allocate funding to replace these remaining mercury lamps. This request was approved, and quotes were obtained for replacing the HXP mercury light sources on the Zeiss LSM880 confocal microscope, the Zeiss Elyra 7 microscope, the Zeiss Axio Observer, and the Zeiss V16 AxioZoom. These light sources are integrated into a Zeiss-managed operating system and service agreement, which means that Zeiss is the only supplier in this instance. Part of the university's data safety policy is to ensure that data is not saved locally, instead, it must be transferred to secure network storage. The Zeiss AxioZoom V16 PC was no longer compliant with this policy. The upgrade for the AxioZoom includes a new PC that enables users to export data securely. Additionally, it will enable remote operation of the system through the automated stage upgrade. The research conducted on this microscope involves long-term tracking of chick embryo development. As the embryos move over time, repositioning of the stage is required. With the automated stage, this task can now be carried out remotely, which ensures that experiments will not fail due to the embryos moving out of the image field.