Confocal fluorescence imaging system with spectroscopy unit

• Subject Area: Basic Research in Biology and Medicine
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 579376715

This proposal requests an advanced confocal laser scanning microscopy and spectroscopy system to perform multicolor live-cell imaging with high spatial and temporal resolution, fluorescence lifetime imaging, time-resolved anisotropy measurements, and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy of living pathogens under biosafety level 2 (BSL2) conditions. The requested technology is essential to investigate fundamental questions at the interface of microbiology, structural cell biology, and infection biology. By combining high resolution imaging with innovative spectroscopic approaches, the system enables the applicants to study molecular dynamics of protein-protein, protein-ligand, and protein-membrane interactions in the context of immune defenses and pathogenic counter defenses. The State-of-the-Art configuration of the system includes sensitive high-speed super-resolution imaging, rapid lifetime imaging, and measuring concentrations and molecular dynamics even of bright samples. Its positioning in the BSL2 laboratory space allows not only the main applicant and the co-applicants to investigate highly dynamic processes involving interactions between host defense factors and pathogen membranes, bacterial virulence factors and secretion machineries, and antimicrobials and bacterial antagonists in tissue culture infection models and in vivo. Acquisition of the requested system will also allow other colleagues from the chemistry, biology, and medical departments to study processes in and on living medically relevant human and animal pathogens, instead of being restricted to using non-pathogenic model organisms. This will not only initiate new and intensify ongoing collaborations between the departments, but also further strengthens the university’s research focus on membrane biology and infection research.

• DFG Programme: Major Research Instrumentation
• Major Instrumentation: Konfokales Laserscanning-Hochleistungsmikroskopsystem mit Spektroskopie-Einheit
• Instrumentation Group: 5090 Spezialmikroskope
• Applicant Institution: Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
• Leader: Professorin Dr. Miriam Kutsch