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An outstanding core facility for light and electron microscopy services.

What We Do

The Center for Advanced Microscopy offers a variety of light and electron microscopy services and is home to the Nikon Imaging Center. Explore our offerings below, or go direct to lists of our Instruments and Fees.

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NIC Scientific Gallery

Some examples of images generated using various instruments at the Nikon Imaging Center at Northwestern University.

Cyskeleal Universe

Cytoskeletal Universe

Combined actin, vimentin and microtubule stains in a BHK cell (Rex Chisholm's Lab)

Spiky!

Spiky!

Espin (green) bundles actin filaments (red) into microvilli that protrude upward from the monolayer of cells. (James Bartles' Lab)

Is I A Rse?

Is It A Rose?

Beta4 integrin (blue) and BPAG1e (magenta) within hemidesmosomes that have been arranged by keratinocyte into a rose-like pattern (Jonathan Jones' Lab)

Devil's Angry Eyes

Devil's Angry Eyes

This iconic picture of HeLa cells served as the promotional image for the 2011-12 One-Book-One-Northwestern event in which Rebecca Skloot's "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" was featured. (Teng-Leong Chew's Lab)

Prsae Bipsy

Prostate Biopsy

Spectrally unmixed Ki67-positive nuclei (red) within a highly autofluorescent prostate biopsy specimen. (Peter Gann's lab)

Mre Spiky Creares

More Spiky Creatures

(James' Bartles Lab)

Raimeric image f mysin II phsphrylain

Ratiometric image of myosin II phosphorylation

Ptk2 cells were stained with antibody specific for phosphorylated form of myosin II regulatory light chain (RLC-p). The intensity of RLC-p stain was ratioed against GFP-RLC expressed in the cells to create this phosphorylation "heat map". (Rex Chisholm Lab)

Mysin heads alng sress fibers

Myosin heads along stress fibers

Comparison of myosin II sarcomeric periodicity (visualized by GFP-regulatory light chain) along stress fibers, as visualized by conventional confocal microscope (left) and N-SIM structured illumination super-resolution microscope (right). Under N-SIM, the individual globular heads of myosin II are clearly visible, as indicated by the red arrows. (Teng-Leong Chew's Lab)

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