Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

We request purchase of Zeiss ""Shuttle and Find"" technology which serves as the interface for state-of-the-art correlative microscopy. Zeiss ""Shuttle and Find"" allows the taking of fluorescent confocal microscope image and then overlay the same ultrastructural image with a Zeiss Merlin electron microscope. The U of Waterloo is unique in Canada in possessing both Zeiss confocal and Zeiss scanning electron Zeiss microscopes (total cost >4 million dollars) that are compatible with state-of-the-art correlative microscopy. Besides the ""Shuttle and Find"" technology, we also require basic upgrades to Waterloo's primary confocal microsope which includes basic laser lines, bright-field transmitted light illumination and detection, and objectives.Microscopy is a vital and fundamental tool in Life and Material Sciences and there are co-applicants from 11 different departments on this grant, all vouching for a university-wide, desperate need for state-of-the-art microscopy. Waterloo has invested more than $4 million dollars in scanning electron microscopes (SEM), and has invested $125K in an NSERC RTI funded Personal 700 confocal microscope. We are able to harness the power of both microscopes together for correlative microscopy with a grant that costs less than 6% of this total ($145K). This grant will both improve the utilization and capacity for microscopy all across campus at the University of Waterloo.Technical support in microscopy is available to new users, faculty, graduate students, and staff, for specimen preparation and gives comprehensive training in the operation of the confocal and scanning electron microscopes. The confocal and SEM microscopes are available to all members of the University community and supports plant, animal, molecular, microbiological, polymer chemistry, other material science, and aquatic research.