Funding boost delivers new imaging technologies to Southampton
The Biomedical Imaging Unit (BIU) has secured over £1.6 million for two state-of-the-art imaging platforms.
The funding comes from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
This investment will expand the scale, scope and resolution of imaging available to researchers. Both new instruments are expected to be operational by the end of the year.
The BIU is an open-access facility. It provides research and diagnostic services in high resolution microscopy.
The facility is based at University Hospital Southampton. It is jointly funded across the university-hospital partnership.
Transforming capabilities
The awards will introduce super-resolution light microscopy and cryo-fluorescence tomography to Southampton.
Professor Nick Evans is Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Southampton (UoS). Prof Evans said:
“Securing two major grants in a single round is an exceptional achievement. It is a testament to the expertise of our Research Technical Professionals.
“These new imaging systems will transform biomedical research at Southampton and strengthen national and international collaboration.”
Providing a whole-organ perspective
The BIU will become home to one of only a dozen Cryo-Fluorescence Tomography (CFT) systems worldwide. It will be the first open-access academic facility with a CFT system in Europe.
Dr Katie Dexter and Dr David Johnston led this application.
“This technology bridges a gap in the scale of imaging”, explained Dr Johnston.
“Live-animal fluorescence imaging gives a whole-body view, but only at millimetre resolution. High-resolution microscopy gives fine detail, but in small areas. CFT combines the best of both - offering ‘big-picture’ 3D imaging with high-resolution.”
Dr Dexter added: “CFT lets us see deep inside tissues and track complex biological processes. For example, we can see how cancer spreads, how drugs are distributed, or how specific genes behave. You can’t get that kind of whole-organ perspective with any other fluorescence technique.”
This grant was supported by researchers from Portsmouth, Sussex, and Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Its open-access model ensures it will serve a broad range of scientific disciplines across the UK.
Sub-cellular imaging
The second award is for a Stimulated Emission Depletion (STED) microscope. Dr Krishna Inavalli and Dr Johnston led the application.
A STED microscope offers unprecedented imaging resolution down to ~30 nanometres. This is more than six times better than conventional light microscopy.
“Researchers increasingly need to see what’s happening at the molecular level - how proteins organise, how structures interact, how diseases begin,” explained Dr Johnston.
“Unlike our existing microscopes, STED allows us to tag different parts of a cell with fluorescent dyes. Then, we can observe them at nanoscale resolution.
“This doesn’t just show us where something is. It also reveals what it’s doing. This gives us critical functional insight into living systems.”
The microscope will support research in cancer biology, neuroscience, infection, immunology and more. Like other BIU resources, it will be available to researchers across UoS and beyond.
“STED fills a key gap in our imaging pipeline between light and electron microscopy,” explained Dr Inavalli. “It enables multi-colour nanoscale imaging, offering a fuller picture of complex biological questions.”
Supporting research
Both bids were conceived, written and led by Research Technical Professionals (RTPs).
Within the BIU, RTPs play a central role in enabling research. They support experimental design, data acquisition, image analysis and publication.
The BIU’s equipment is available to UK academia and industry. Discover more about the facility here.
For access and collaboration enquiries, please contact biu@soton.ac.uk.