A versatile and customizable low-cost 3D-printed open standard for microscopic imaging

Benedict Diederich (), René Lachmann, Swen Carlstedt, Barbora Marsikova, Haoran Wang, Xavier Uwurukundo, Alexander S. Mosig and Rainer Heintzmann
Additional contact information
Benedict Diederich: Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology
René Lachmann: Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology
Swen Carlstedt: Jena University Hospital, Institute of Biochemistry II
Barbora Marsikova: Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology
Haoran Wang: Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology
Xavier Uwurukundo: Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology
Alexander S. Mosig: Jena University Hospital, Institute of Biochemistry II
Rainer Heintzmann: Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Modern microscopes used for biological imaging often present themselves as black boxes whose precise operating principle remains unknown, and whose optical resolution and price seem to be in inverse proportion to each other. With UC2 (You. See. Too.) we present a low-cost, 3D-printed, open-source, modular microscopy toolbox and demonstrate its versatility by realizing a complete microscope development cycle from concept to experimental phase. The self-contained incubator-enclosed brightfield microscope monitors monocyte to macrophage cell differentiation for seven days at cellular resolution level (e.g. 2 μm). Furthermore, by including very few additional components, the geometry is transferred into a 400 Euro light sheet fluorescence microscope for volumetric observations of a transgenic Zebrafish expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP). With this, we aim to establish an open standard in optics to facilitate interfacing with various complementary platforms. By making the content and comprehensive documentation publicly available, the systems presented here lend themselves to easy and straightforward replications, modifications, and extensions.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19447-9 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-19447-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19447-9

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().