Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

We are requesting the purchase of the EVOS M7000 microscope which allows for superior imaging of both live and fixed cells on slides or plates, including scanning, tiling, z-stacking, and image stitching. Seeing is believing! It is hard to refute a discovery when you can watch it happen in real time. This is the power of live cell imaging and the next generation EVOS M7000. The M7000 is a user-friendly microscope that allows researchers to obtain high quality and reliable data at a single-cell resolution. This microscope will allow us to study how viruses infect animal cells, such as cells from livestock and wildlife. The data generated from these studies will help us inform the development of therapies to counteract animal virus infections. The microscope will be housed within Canada's largest high containment level 3 (CL3) lab which will allow us to study viruses that pose the highest risk to our livestock and wildlife. Indeed, data from our studies will help protect Canadian wildlife and livestock from debilitating diseases, which will in turn protect food security, trade sovereignty, and human health. Since the pathogens that we investigate are categorized as risk group 3, our experiments need to be performed in a CL3 laboratory. We do not have a fluorescence microscope and live cell imager within our CL3 laboratory, making it impossible to rigorously test our hypothesis and visualize host-virus interactions using novel cells and three-dimensional organoid models that we have developed. Research activities using the microscope will directly support the training of Canadian students and researchers who will strengthen Canada's pandemic preparedness strategy against emerging animal viruses. Data from the research will position Canada as one of the leading players in wildlife infection biology, which will tremendously impact Canada's global reputation. Indeed, research using the EVOS M7000 will empower us to become a part of the solution for emerging viruses and the threat that they pose for the Canadian economy and animal health.