
Nikon BioImaging Lab contributes to “mini-gut” research
Dr. Hidenori Akutsu
Director of the Department of Reproductive Medicine, Center for Regenerative Medicine, National Center for Child Health and Development
Director of the Department of Reproductive Medicine, Center for Regenerative Medicine, National Center for Child Health and Development
Hiroaki Miki, Professor
Yosuke Funato, Associate Professor
Osamu Hashizume, Assistant Professor
Division of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Department of Cellular Regulation
Research Outline: Analyzing the function of a membrane protein molecule called Cyclin M, which plays a role in ejecting magnesium ions from cells.
Observation utilizing microscopes plays an extremely important role in learning the basics of science. Nikon’s ECLIPSE Ei was developed as an educational-use microscope with the concept of being a ‘user-friendly microscope even for students operating it for the first time’. We visited Ms. Rika Izumi, a science teacher at Rikkyo Niiza Junior and Senior High School, Saitama, Japan, where the ECLIPSE Ei is available in the classrooms, to learn about the background and reasons for choosing this microscope, the user experience, and the reactions from students.
Clinical examinations play an important role in medical care. Nikon has developed a new biological microscope, the ECLIPSE Ci-L plus, with the concept of reducing physical and mental strain on clinicians and laboratory technicians who use microscopes on a daily basis. In this interview, we talked to Dr. Akira Yoshikawa from the Department of Anatomic Pathology, Kameda Medical Center – a flagship hospital in the southern part of Chiba prefecture, Japan – on his thoughts after employing this microscope and the newly developed objective lens for microscopes ‘CFI Plan Apochromat Lambda D’ for practical everyday use.
Associate Prof. Dr. Klazina Kooiman, Head of Therapeutic Ultrasound Contrast Agent Group, and Dr. Ines Beekers, Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Biomedical Engineering of the Thoraxcenter, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Reproduction Clinic Tokyo, a fertility clinic located on the third floor of Shiodome City Center, a state-of-the-art office building in the Shiodome area of central Tokyo, has a large number of patients waiting for treatment, even in the evening on weekdays. We spoke with Shimpei Mizuta and Tomohiro Maekawa, who are using Nikon’s Ti2 inverted microscope for sperm sorting and Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), about their thoughts on their work and their impressions of the Ti2.
Dr. Yohei Yamauchi, Principal Investigator, Cell biologist of viral infections, School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Bristol, UK
Virology and Microbiology
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas, USA
Therapeutic Ultrasound Contrast Agent Group, Thoraxcenter, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam
Director: MRC Human Genetics Unit, University of Edinburgh
Dr. Steven Nedellec, Facility Manager of MicroPICell, Université de Nantes, France and Dr. Tiphaine Douanne, Universite de Nantes, Signaling in Oncogenesis, Angiogenesis and Permeability, CRCINA INSERM U1232, France
Senior Lecturer in Cardiovascular Science, University of Birmingham
Division of Bio-Imaging, Proteo-Science Center (PROS), Ehime University
Division of Analytical Bio-Medicine, Advanced Research Support Center (ADRES), Ehime University
Graduate School of Medicine, Ehime University
The advanced Fluorescence Imaging and Biophysics Group, ICFO-Institute of Photonic Sciences
Professor and Vice Chairman of the Dept. of Cell Biology
Director and Founder of the Center for Biologic Imaging
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Professor and Vice-Chairman of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)
The University of California, San Francisco San Francisco, CA, USA
Research Institute for Electronic Science
Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan
Institute of Experimental Medicine of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (IEM HAS)
Budapest, Hungary
Group Leader (Royal Society University Research Fellow)
Randall Division of Cell and Molecular Biophysics
King’s College London
London, United Kingdom
Professor of Applied Physics, Department of Physics, University of Genoa
Director of the Department of Nanophysics, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
Professor, Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco
Senior Team Leader, Laboratory for Cell Function Dynamics, RIKEN Brain Science Institute
Department of Cell Science, Institute of Biomedical Science, Fukushima Medical University
The Imagerie-Gif light microscopy core facility is a member of the France Bioimaging Infrastructure. The facility is hosted by the Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell (I2BC) at Gif sur Yvette, France.
Staffan Strömblad Ph.D. is group leader at the prestigious Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, an institution that awards the Physiology Nobel Prize yearly. He is also the head of the Live Cell Imaging Facility (LCI), in which the Nikon Center of Excellence for live cell imaging is integrate.
The Faculty of Life Science (SV) at the École Polytechnique Fédéral de Laussane (EPFL), Switzerland, has a long record of excellence in research applied to life sciences
Chief Scientific Officer at Natural Bio-Medicine SpA,
Aboca Group
Full time professor at the Laboratory of Experimental Epileptology and Cognition Research hosted in the Life & Brain Center, Part of the University of Bonn.
So-called iPS cells are attracting considerable interest as pluripotent stem cells that may open up a whole new world of medicine. The Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) at Kyoto University is pursuing a wide range of research activities that aim to realize regenerative medicine utilizing iPS cells. The Nikon BioStation CT cell culture observation system is being used in this iPS cell research and is contributing to its efficiency.
We were pleased to have had an opportunity to speak with Masato Nakagawa, who is engaged in iPS cell research at CiRA.
Note: The institutions and job titles listed with each researcher reflect their affiliation at the time of the interview.