Computational Biology: CCBScope Observatory

Fluorescent microscope image of a cell with two bright blue circular structures on each side, surrounded by a red, textured background, set against a black backdrop. — What is this gif showing us, and how does it demonstrate the observatory’s work/services? Credit: TK

About

Exclusive to the Flatiron Institute, the CCBScope Observatory — the in-house experimental arm of CCBx — helps scientists address fundamental biological questions.

The Observatory team develops and applies quantitative workflows for 3D and long-term time-lapse imaging to resolve dynamics at cellular and subcellular scales using model organisms such as C. elegans and D. melanogaster, and in vitro systems such as mammalian neuronal cultures.

Equipment includes:

a laser-scanning confocal light microscope optimized for long-term and rapid live imaging of large fields of view and equipped with a photomanipulation unit for various perturbation experiments
an ancillary epifluorescent scope
several dissecting scopes
other supporting equipment for handling approved model organisms and biological specimens

Experiments are performed in close collaboration with resident theorists and data scientists, taking advantage of the Center for Computational Biology’s expertise in image and data analysis, biophysical modeling and simulation.

Publications

Imaging Cortical Dynamics in GCaMP Transgenic Rats with a Head-Mounted Widefield Macroscope.

Neuron, October 25, 2018

BB Scott, SY Thiberge, C Guo, DGR Tervo, CD Brody, AY Karpova, et al.

Feature

Colorized time-lapse of an individual sperm. The sperm uncoils at random like an earthworm in a puddle showing the juxtaposition of single sperm dynamics vs. the collective.

Mysteries of Fruit Fly Sperm Untangled by Mathematical Models

Biologists at the Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute and their colleagues strive to better understand remarkable living systems by bringing biology and mathematics into closer dialogue. In a recent study using live-cell confocal microscopy at the CCBScope Observatory, researchers untangled the mystery of fruit fly sperm. Continue