The Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy is located in 20,000 square feet of newly renovated laboratory space at the Queen Lane Campus of Drexel University College of Medicine. The Queen Lane Campus also houses the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the teaching facilities for medical students.
The Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy imaging facilities include:
- Automated wide-field fluorescence microscope for multi-color image acquisition
- Stereology system equipped with Neurolucida neuron tracing software
- Laser microdissection system for isolating specific cells from tissue samples
- Automated four-quadrant spectrophotometer plate reader for protein interaction assays
- High-end spectral confocal microscope with visible and ultra-violet illumination capabilities and corresponding software allowing for virtually artifact-free multi-color fluorescence image acquisition and analysis
For additional information, training and reservations of the imaging facilities, contact Dr. Vladimir Zhukarev at vz29@drexel.edu.
The Queen Lane Library on the main floor of the Drexel University College of Medicine Campus (2900 W. Queen Lane), houses books, journals and other materials to support the educational needs of students in the first two years of medical school, and the research needs of the basic sciences departments. The collection focuses on the basic sciences, including research literature in biochemistry, microbiology/immunology, neuroscience, physiology, molecular biology and cell biology; there is also a core collection of books on clinical medicine. Approximately 17,000 books and journals and over 200 videotapes and slide sets are available.
Drexel University College of Medicine has developed a reputation for excellence in medical education and research. Together, the Departments of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Pharmacology and Physiology, Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry form an interdisciplinary core of scientists involved in neuroscience research.
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Institutional agreements make some software available, via Drexel FTP server, to members of the Drexel community.
Visit the Drexel software portal. (If the link does not work the first time, click on refresh or reload.)
In order to download the software, you must login with your Drexel domain user ID and password. Enter your user ID as userid@drexel.
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This page is to help all of us conform to the continually updated and changing university regulations. In addition contact numbers and procedures on how to get things done are included.
Jonathan M. Chase, Exectuive Director, Department of Environmental Health and Safety, 215.895.5891
Office of Research Policy and Procedures, Manuals and Guidelines
- IACUC Policies
- IRB Guidelines
- General Laboratory Safety
- Right to Know Guidelines
- Research Conduct Policy
Drexel's Chemical Hygiene Plan (to comply with OSHA's Health and Safety Standards)
Sigma-Aldrich company family material safety data sheets
MSDS Search Engine
Hazardous Material Identification Guide The NFPA Fire Diamond
Getting Things Done
Sharps and biohazard removal is performed by the College of Medicine. Sharps containers are available FREE from Department of Environmental Health and Safety.
Hoods need to be calibrated regularly (yearly). This service is scheduled by the Department of Environmental Health and Safety.
Something broke? Hoods down? No DI? Water brown? Contact Facilities Management:
215.991.8500
215.991.8484
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Confocal image of the dorsal raphe nucleus. Fixed tissue section. Green - Alexa 488 serotonin, red - Cy3 tryptophan hydroxylase. Automatic acquisition and stitching of 12 stack/tiles.
Director: Julien Bouyer
Email: jjb97@drexel.edu
Phone: 215.991.8459
The Microscope Facility consists of the Leica TCS SP8 VIS/405. Another confocal microscope Leica Stellaris 5 is available through DUCOM Research Core. A Leica Thunder 3DImager is also available with sudo confocal capacities as indicated below. The Facility is housed in room 251 on the first floor and room 188H of the ground floor of Queen Lane, in the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy. The stand-alone Workstation with full copy of the Leica LAS X and Huygens (SVI) post-processing software is in room 177A on the ground floor.
The director, Julien Bouyer, trains all new users, oversees day-to-day operation, maintains the facility and updates the reservation calendar and schedule of microscope use. Mr. Bouyer supervises the overall operation by establishing rules and procedures for the use of microscopes. All problems or issues that arise with the microscopes are to be directed to Mr. Bouyer.
General Policies
- Use of the microscope is restricted to investigators within the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy. People from outside of the department who wish to use the system must receive authorization from the department chair, Dr. Rodrigo Espana.
- All users must complete the laser module in BioRaft before they can be eligible for training.
- All users must obtain training prior to unsupervised use of the microscope, even if other workers from the same laboratory have already been trained or the user has had prior experience with a similar microscope. Training is only provided by Julien Bouyer.
- The microscope is available to eligible users after training within the proper procedures and guidelines.
- Access to the facility is allowed between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. Monday through Friday. Special authorization is required to access the facility during weekends or outside of the normal hours of operation.
- Each confocal session is limited to one 3 hours session per day, and a limit of 3 sessions per week* (9 hours total) within regular working hours (9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.) per user. Sessions are divided as followed:
- Session 1: 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
- Session 2: 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
- Session 3: 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
- These limitations do not apply outside these regular working hours.
- If a user does not arrive during the first hour of their booking the instrument is considered available for others.
- Individual researchers are responsible for conducting their own imaging sessions on the microscope. Problems while using the microscope should be recorded in the log journal. It is important to keep in mind that failure to do so creates the potential for serious hardware breakdown with very expensive repairs as a result.
Training
All training for new users will be conducted by Julien Bouyer only. Principal investigators should contact the director to request training for their students and personnel. An initial discussion will help determine which microscope is best suited for specific research goals. As a guide, the department offers the following in terms of imaging:
| |
Objectives |
Tiling |
Z-Stack |
Deconvolution |
TauSense |
Thunder Imager-Widefield (Neuro Only) |
5x, 10x, 20x, 40x, 63x Water |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
SP8 - Confocal |
2.5x, 10x, 20x Oil, 63x Oil, 63x Glycerol |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
Stellaris 5 – Confocal (DUCOM Core) |
10x, 20x, 20x Oil, 40x motCorr Glycerol, 100x Oil |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Training consists of a 2-hour session where basic manipulations of the system are demonstrated and a follow-up session where new users perform their acquisition under supervision. Access is granted after the completion of training.
Help and Collaboration of Research Projects
Mr. Bouyer will be available to help with research projects in both the acquisition of high-resolution images and in image processing steps.
Arrangement for research help and collaboration are encouraged, but must be approved by the department chair, Dr. Rodrigo Espana.
Reserving the Confocal Microscope
Users should book time on the microscope up to two weeks in advance; cancellation of planned usage should be made in timely fashion. The Outlook calendar application is the most user-friendly way to make reservations. While defining a time slot, users should also enter: 1) username, 2) very brief description of the imaging experiment (fixed vs live) and 3) the name of PI.
Example: Joe Somebody; Dr. Else; fixed tissue
Unless there are urgent needs (e.g., before major meetings such as SFN), the time slot duration can occupy the full working day hours of the facility (i.e., 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.). The exception is for live specimen experiments where the microscope can be booked for several consecutive sessions. Due to safety regulations overnight, unsupervised imaging is not permitted.
Under no circumstances may a user sign up for time using another person's name.
Stellaris Bookings
All reservations are handled through Ilab: https://drexel.ilab.agilent.com/account/login
Image Facility Rules
- Users will obtain a key for the facility from the office of the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy or the previous user. Effort should be made to transmit the key to the next user.
- Users should record their actual log-in and log-out time in the microscope log journal on the workstation desk.
- [SP8 only] Before turning the system on, users must turn on the air conditioning unit using the remote control. The very last user of the day should turn it off before leaving the room. The AC temperature is not to be changed (69 F).
- Entering the room wearing protective gloves is not permitted. Food and drinks are not allowed.
- Coverslip limitations are indicated in the room and need to be followed. Size 1.5 max and dimension max are 24x50. Keep at least 6mm between the lateral border of the slides. Mounting medium must be dried and the coverslip must be sealed.
- Before starting their session, users must clean old oil off their slides using Sparkle cleaner or 70% alcohol. Mixture of oils either on the slide or on the oil lenses (where it will end up staying) corrupts the quality of image acquisition.
- Spills must be taken care of immediately and reported in the log journal for further technical care.
- At the end of each session, oil objective lenses must be gently blotted by a stretched Kimwipe provided as demonstrated during training.
- If the microscope is not scheduled to be used again for more than one hour after a current session is over (check the Outlook calendar schedule), all components of the microscope should be shut down according to the posted shutdown procedure. If the interval is shorter, the user needs to close the Leica software program and to log out leaving the confocal microscope hardware running.
- The last booked user of the day is responsible for ensuring that the microscope is shut down properly, even if that user cancels the session.
Computer Workstations
For additional safety, the confocal workstations are kept separated from the institutional network. All software updates needed are done by the director exclusively.
Users are not allowed to download or install software on the computer.
Users should back up their files on their USB drives or other storage medium and delete their files from the hard disk. Any user data remaining on the hard drive will be removed during routine maintenance by the end of each quarter without notifying users.
S10 citation for images acquired with the Stellaris 5
Per NIH-wide policies, any publication that reports data collected using an S10 instrument must be linked to the S10 award using MyNCBI (like it would be done for any research grant, for example an R01) or acknowledge the award in the body of the paper.
The grant number is NIH 1S10OD034206.
Cancellation of User Privileges
Because this is a shared use facility, repeated violation of the stated rules and procedures will not be tolerated. Perpetrators will be subject to loss of privileges at the facility director's discretion.
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