September 2010 Euro-UK Editions Cover Picture and Story

The cover image shows monkey kidney Vero cells labelled with MitoTracker (red, mitochondria) and CFP-tau fusion protein (cyan). The image was taken using the new Olympus xcellence microscopy system for life sciences imaging applications. (Image courtesy of Eva-Maria Mandelkow and Eckhard Mandelkow, Max-Planck-Unit for Structural Molecular Biology, Hamburg, Germany.)

Olympus has recently launched its xcellence range of versatile fluorescence research microscope systems for advanced live-cell techniques. The realtime Unix-based controller provides high-speed parallel component management for advanced data capture, while the xcellence software’s Experiment Manager has a simple drag-and-drop method for designing even the most complex experiments. Taking advantage of the Olympus MT10 and MT20 fluorescence light sources, xcellence systems provide highly stabilised mercury or mercury/xenon burner control, with very fast filter, attenuator and shutter changes: making them the ultimate systems for imaging live cells over extended time periods.

xcellence cell^tirf
The cell^tirf module enables ultra-sensitive, simultaneous multi-colour total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy. Featuring four laser lines with separate motorised angle control for synchronised acquisition with identical penetration depths, users can set incident angles or the depth of imaging with ease.

xcellence cell^frap
The cell^frap system offers easy and fast real-time photobleaching and photomanipulation experiments. These include advanced FRAP, iFRAP, FLIP, FLAP, photoactivation and photoswitching applications. Intelligent scanning algorithms that target the region of interest (ROI) remove the need for line scanning between ROIs, increasing the scan speed.

Contact:
OLYMPUS EUROPA HOLDING GMBH
Dr Friederike Lehmann
Marketing Communications
Tel: +49 40 2 37 73 - 5406
Fax: +49 40 2 37 73 - 4647
E-mail: microscopy@olympus-europa.com
www.microscopy.olympus.eu