N-STORM Microscopes will Enhance Resolution 10-fold

Agreement for Use of Innovative Harvard STORM Technology

Nikon, N-STORM more

Nikon Instruments has announced that Nikon Corporation has signed a licensing agreement with Harvard University granting the company its rights to use the Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy (STORM) technology. Under the terms of the agreement, Nikon will manufacture this technology enabled microscopy systems, designed to realize resolution higher than ever before achieved by conventional optical microscopes, and market them with the N-STORM name.
Enabling clearer observation of tissues and cells, this technology is an advanced form of optical microscopy - one of the most widely used imaging methods in biomedical research. However, the spatial resolution of optical microscopy, classically limited by the diffraction of light to several hundred nanometres, is substantially larger than typical molecular length scales in cells, leaving many biological investigations beyond the reach of light microscopy. To overcome this limit, a new form of high resolution light microscopy, was developed in the laboratory of Dr. Xiaowei Zhuang, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and Professor of Physics at Harvard University. The technology uses photo-switchable fluorescent probes to temporally separate the otherwise spatially overlapping images of individual molecules, allowing the construction of super resolution images. Using this concept, two- and three-dimensional, multicolour fluorescence images of molecular complexes, cells and tissues with a few tens of nanometres resolution have been achieved. This new form of fluorescence microscopy allows molecular interactions in cells and cell-cell interactions in tissues to be imaged at the nanometre scale.
The N-STORM Super Resolution microscope system will be available for delivery in May 2010.

Related Articles :

• Super-Resolution Imaging: Researchers Produce ‘Primer’ to Guide the Use of STORM

Keywords: Harvard University Microscope N-Storm Nikon Optical Microscopy Stochastic Optical Reconstruction STORM

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