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N-SIM Super Resolution Microscope recognised as one of the Top Innovations of 2011 by The Scientist
März 2, 2012
‘It would be fantastic to bring this as a routine system into standard imaging labs’
Nikon Instruments’ N-SIM Super Resolution Microscope has been featured in the US life sciences journal, The Scientist’s Top 10 Innovations contest – a showcase of the coolest life science tools to emerge in the previous year. A panel of expert judges – Björn Brembs, from the Freie Universität in Berlin, Medical University of Vienna neuronal cell biologist Michael Kiebler, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory biologist H. Steven Wiley, and Aris Persidis, president of Biovista, a pharmaceutical services company, combined forces to pick the technologies likely to have the biggest impact. Out of 65 entries, N-SIM, was recognised as being one the fastest, most powerful high-resolution optical microscopes on the market and placed fifth in the rankings of tools to break new scientific ground and expand our understanding of biology in the months and years to come.
Revolutionising high-resolution optical imaging by breaking through the diffraction barrier that limits conventional microscopy, N-SIM technology incorporates structured illumination microscopy (SIM) – pioneered by the University of California, San Francisco, into Nikon’s flagship Ti inverted microscope. The N-SIM microscope can achieve a spatial resolution between 85 and 110 nm and a temporal resolution of 600 milliseconds per frame, which allows for dynamic, live-cell imaging.
“N-SIM technology provides researchers with the ability to combine the molecular specificity of fluorescently tagged proteins with a significant improvement in resolution,” explains Christopher O’Connell, super-resolution systems product manager at Nikon, “allowing them to observe fine structural details which were previously obscured by diffraction.”
Judge Michael Kiebler commented, “Structured illumination has been shown to improve imaging in the nm range. It would be fantastic to bring this as a routine system into standard imaging labs.”
“The system is highly modular,” Christopher O’Connell added, “allowing for the combination of other technologies, such as confocal microscopy and Nikon’s STochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy (N-STORM) system, with the same microscope.”
This is the second acknowledgment for Nikon’s innovative technology by The Scientist. Its Perfect Focus System has featured previously in The Scientist’s Top Ten Innovations.