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Core Facilities

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Resources

The Core Facilities at the IGB is a state-of-the-art resource for biological microscopy and image analysis. The core mission of the facility is to provide IGB faculty, as well as faculty from across campus with the tools and expertise to meet their imaging goals. In addition to providing technical assistance in acquiring and analyzing microscopy images the staff is also able to aid in designing and interpreting experiments.

 

What Core Facilities can offer

Health & Wellness

High-end equipment

From Confocals and MINFLUX to CT Scanners and AFM.

List of Instruments

Technology & Socety

User training

Schedule training with us to access Core instruments.

Training Request Form

Agriculture & Energy

Ongoing support

Experiment design, data interpretation, image analysis, and more.

List of Services

Outreach & Public Engagement

Twenty-four hour access

The Core is available 24 hours a day to support your research endeavors.

IGB CONNECT ACCESS Request

Education and Training

The Core Facilities trains hundreds of new users each year on one or more instruments, and are as essential portion of the IGB’s Pollen Power summer camp program, bringing middle-school age children from local communities to engage with the Core.

Our new user procedures form guides users through the training process. To request training (theory training is required for most microscopes including LSM 700, LSM 710, Apotome, SR-SIM, before the hands-on training), please fill out our training request form. Users have access to IGB disk space through the IGB computer and network resources group to transfer data. To request access to the IGB building, please fill out the IGB Connect Access Request.

Training pages can be found here.

 

 

Collaboration

 

In addition to the typical fee for training and instrument time, collaborations with the core facilities staff can be beneficial in the development of unique methods or capabilities.  Publications containing work performed in the core facilities should use these guidelines for acknowledging the core facilities. Download a copy of our brochure.

The IGB Core cooperates with the following facilities on campus to provide an extensive selection of instrumentation to campus researchers:

 

Beckman Materials Lab Molecular Biology Biotech CMtO DNA Services BioNanotech Lab

 

List of additional facilities

Lunch with the Core 

The IGB Core Facilities hosts a seminar series each semester covering instrumentation in the Core and research taking place in the Core. Previous Lunch with the Core information can be found below.

2024
February 14, 2024

"Integrating Live Confocal Microscope Imagery of Plant Stomata with Gas Exchange Measurements" - Joseph Crawford, Postdoctoral Research Associate - Plant Biology

 Instrument: LSM 710

Joe's talk can be found here.

February 28, 2024

"Introduction to STEDYCON: A Confocal and STED System with Super-resolution Capabilities" - Umnia Doha, Research Scientist - Core Facilities 

Instrument: STEDYCON

Umnia's talk can be found here.

March 6, 2024

"X-Ray Computed Tomography in the Core Facility: Research and Manufacturing Applications of the NSI X5000" - Dr. Austin Cyphersmith, Assistant Director of Research Instrumentation - Core Facilities 

Instrument: X5000

Austin's talk can be found here.

March 27, 2024

"3D Data Analysis and Segmentation Tools" - Dr. Kingsley Boateng, Assistant Director of Bioscience Research & Microscopy - Core Facilities

Instrument: Amira & Imaris Software

Kingsley's talk can be found here.

April 3, 2024

"Revolutions in Data" - Dan Davidson, Director of CNRG and Research Computing - Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology

Dan's talk can be found here.

April 10, 2024 "A solid-liquid superposition model for interfacial solvation structures" - Qian Ai, Graduate Research Assistant - Materials Science & Engineering
April 17, 2024 "Introduction to BookitLab" - Dr. Glenn Fried, Director of the Core Facilities
April 24, 2024

"Introducing Spatial Transcriptomics to Core Facilities: A Custom Built MERFISH Microscope " - Duncan Nall, Research Scientist - Core Facilities 

Instrument: MERFISH

May 1, 2024 "Creating Art of Science" - Julia Pollack, Creative Program Manager - Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology
2023

 

March 1, 2023

"An Introduction to the Zeiss LSM 900: With Super-resolution and Deconvolution Capability" - Dr. Austin Cyphersmith, Assistant Director of Research Instrumentation, Core Facilities at IGB

Instrument: LSM 900 

Austin's talk: https://youtu.be/95MB2DQW_BQ

March 8, 2023

"Computer services at the IGB" - Dan Davidson, Director of Computer and Network Resource Group - IGB

Topic: Computer Services

Dan's talk: https://youtu.be/UHJ_EwEsC_Y

March 22, 2023

"Keyence Microscope Demo" - Scott Waddle

Instrument: Keyence Microscopes

March 29, 2023

"Identification of structural model of mammalian meiotic synaptonemal complex with super-resolution scope (MINFLUX)" - Reza Rajabi Toustani, Postdoc Research Associate, Department of Comparative Biosciences, College of Veterinary Medicine

Instrument: Minflux

April 5, 2023

"Crafting the Art of Science: a Sneak Peek Behind the Scenes" - Julia Pollack, Creative Program Manager, IGB

Topic: Art of Science

Julia's talk: https://youtu.be/67atM0TjTWw

April 12, 2023 "Mechanics to microstructure: Image-based modeling of the extracellular matrix" - Callan Luetkemeyer, Adjunct Assistant Professor, The Grainger College of Engineering, MechSE
April 19, 2023

"Single cell spatial transcriptomic analysis of adult honeybee phenotypes" - Alex Schrader, Chemistry Doctoral Candidate, Han Lab

Instrument: Widefield Microscope

September 20, 2023

"An Introduction to the Core Facilities" - Dr. Glenn Fried, Director of the IGB Core Facilities

 Instruments located in the Core Facilities can be found here.

Glenn's talk: https://youtu.be/2ufeSdnoubM

September 27, 2023

"Firing of in-vitro hippocampal neuronal network depends on the mechanical tension" - Md Saddam Hossain Joy, Graduate Teaching Assistant - Mechanical Science & Engineering

Instrument: LSM 880

Md Saddam Hossain Joy's talk: https://youtu.be/TgGTQ7Wqfyc

October 11, 2023

"Super-Resolution Imaging of AMPA Receptors in Brain Tissue" - Rohit Vaidya, Graduate Research Assistant - Physics

Instrument: LSM 880 & Cryostat

Rohit's talk: https://youtu.be/BGL0wWa7e7o

October 25, 2023

"Biocluster: New Features and New Computing" - Daniel Davidson

Topic: Biocluster

Dan's talk: https://youtu.be/KFZXtwnsHQU

 

November 1, 2023

"Further Insights into Kinesin Motility Using MINFLUX: A Super-Resolution Nanoscopic Method (Kinesin Motility: Characterizing the Half-Steps and Backsteps)" - Devinda Pankaja Wijewardena, Grad. Research Asst. - Physics - Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

Instrument: MINFLUX

 

November 8, 2023

"Volume Electron Microscopy: Concepts, Correlations and Computations" - Kedar Narayan, Ph.D - Senior Scientist, NIH 

Kedar's talk: https://youtu.be/4tSG_rh8oMg

 

 

Contact

Glenn Fried

Glenn Fried

Director of Core Facilities
Core Facilities

gfried@illinois.edu
(217) 333-4328

Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center

The Illinois Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center (CBC) and IGB’s integrated suite of next-gen instrumentation is available for users to conduct cutting-edge Omics analyses within the three-dimensional (3D) structural, compositional and formational history of any given sample.

Samples can be composed of tissues, cells, or a combination including biomineral deposits (e.g., bones, teeth, ectopic calcification). The IGB Core Facility provides 3D micro-CT x-ray structural scans at a resolution of 3-100 microns (depending on sample size, shape and composition), coupled with micron-scale Raman characterization of the mineralogical composition of embedded biomineral deposits. High-quality histology sections and petrographic thin sections can be strategically prepared and further interrogated using optical and electron microscopes available within the IGB Core Facility.

Analysis of these samples are done through the DNA Services, Cytometry and Microscopy to Omics (CMtO), and High Performance Computing Bioinformatics (HPCBio) facilities within the CBC, able to conduct cell cytometry analysis and sorting, 10X Genomics Visium CytAssist spatial transcriptomics and proteomics from total mRNA within original 3D tissue and biomineral structure (bridging histology and genomics), and 10X Genomics Chromium high-throughput or deep single cell RNA-Seq.