Project Details
Projekt
Inverted multiphoton microscope
Subject Area
Basic Research in Biology and Medicine
Term
Funded in 2023
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 527138861
The work of the Department of Molecular Tumor Cell Biology at the Institute of Cell Biology and Immunology at the University of Stuttgart aims to investigate cellular transformation processes in the context of carcinogenesis and cancer progression. Fundamental studies by the applicant on the biological function of receptor tyrosine kinases have made an important contribution to the development of targeted approaches in personalized cancer medicine. However, not all patients respond to these targeted therapies and even with initial therapeutic success, resistance often develops. In order to develop effective personalized strategies for tumor therapy, reliable preclinical model systems are indispensable, on the one hand to elucidate molecular relationships in the context of basic research, and on the other hand to provide a valid platform for drug screening in applied studies. While both classical 2D cell cultures with established cancer cell lines and tumor models in mice show considerable limitations in replicating tumor physiology, heterogeneous 3D cultures based on spheroids, organoids and primary tissues can be used to recapitulate the complexity of tumors in a much more realistic manner. Analyses performed directly with such complex 3D model systems thus promise a higher transferability of the obtained data to the patient. For this reason, future work of the applicant will increasingly use ex vivo (directly obtained from the organism) and de novo (synthetically recreated) 3D tumor tissue cultures, the preparation of which will take place in the newly established 3R-Tissue Lab at the University of Stuttgart. For real-time examination of tissue-like samples of high cell density, multiphoton microscopy is particularly well suited due to its fluorescence imaging at penetration depths up to one millimeter. Therefore, a confocal microscope with integrated flexible multichannel multiphoton imaging is requested, with additional fluorescence lifetime-based capabilities. The microscope will support the integration of perfusion systems for "liquid handling" and will be equipped for long-term observations of living tissue samples under physiological conditions. The instrument will be centrally located and operated in the Core Facility "Cellular Analytics" of the Stuttgart Research Center Systems Biology (SRCSB). On the one hand, this ensures optimal technical support; at the same time, the microscope will be made available to all working groups of the SRCSB and thus to a broad user community. The acquisition of the microscope will significantly expand the range of imaging techniques on site and will for the first time make multiphoton microscopy and fluorescence lifetime-based measurements available to researchers at the University of Stuttgart.
DFG Programme
Major Research Instrumentation
Major Instrumentation
Inverses Multiphotonenmikroskop
Instrumentation Group
5090 Spezialmikroskope
Applicant Institution
Universität Stuttgart
