Talk:Higher optical spatial resolution

From BioImagingUKWiki

The Super-resolution groups coordinator is Ann Wheeler please contact me on a.p.wheeler@qmul.ac.uk if you have any querys

Please enter any things you would like raised in the discussion here.

[[ To kick off:]]

Rolly Wiegand mentioned that he wasn't sure what the resource would look like or where the funding would come from which I didn't mention in the text.

John Girkin suggested that help with potential users in the selection of the best method is something that should be made available and that there could be some people who have already got PALM and STORM going so others can get preliminary data.

Ian Dobbie: This could be even more useful for other techniques as equipment investment for SI or STED based super-resolution is very substantial.

Dave Clarke: From a facility provision point of view I am interested in getting opinions about what should be done in a central facility vs what is best done by individual university groups. Obviously this applies across the board not just for super-resolution. In my opinion features of a central facility should be (in no particular order):

1) Develop, and provide early access to, new imaging technologies that have not yet been fully commercialised.

2) Provides access to technologies that are more established but still not generally available to most groups because of scale or cost. This allows, for example, proof-of-principle experiments for researchers who are considering use of a new technique but are uncertain whether to commit resources to implement it in their home institution, or people who need occasional access to a method but cannot justify the cost and time commitment to establish the method at home.

3) In addition to the technology, also provide access to expertise in sample preparation, data collection, and analysis for the non-expert. Important to offer a multidisciplinary team - physicists, biologists, data analysis experts, chemists.

4) Co-locate imaging facilities to enable correlative microscopy across a range of techniques e.g. super-resolution light microscopy, EM, and x-ray microscopy.

5) Free access to users through a peer-review system.

6) Work with instrument manufacturers to speed up commercialisation of new technologies.

Do people agree with these points? Is there anything else that a central facility should be doing?