Equipment is the latest global trend for observing living cells and detailing molecules
Created from the association between the Institute of Biology (IB) and the Gleb Wataghin Institute of Physics (IFGW), the Institute National Photonics Applied to Cellular Biology (INFABiC) becomes the first Zeiss Microscopy Center of Excellence in South America. At INFABiC, advanced microscopy studies are developed on biological materials using state-of-the-art lasers and optical techniques and equipment non-linear. In this multipurpose laboratory, nine microscopes with microscopy techniques are already available for the entire academic community, and this partnership with the German multinational Zeiss, leader in technology in the optical and optoelectronic sector, allowed the installation of two super-resolution equipment – the latest global trend for observing living cells and detailing molecules.
“This new acquisition of Super-Resolution it will take us to the molecular level, to another limit of our techniques. We already have all the non-linear optics part, with its molecular manipulation system (such as laser cutting), and now incorporating equipment with at least three different techniques”, says Carlos Lenz Cesar, full professor who collaborates with IFGW and who coordinates the INFABiC together with Hernandes Carvalho, professor at IB.
INFABiC was created in 2009 with funding from the CNPq/Fapesp consortium for the formation of the National Institutes of Science and Technology (INCTs), submitting a project that included more than 30 researchers from various national institutions and 20 subprojects – and had the contract renewed in 2014. “We were by far the first to have the entire nonlinear optics part assembled in Brazil, from the beginning with the perspective of providing a system of equipment for all areas – physics, chemistry, biology, chemical engineering, food engineering , medicine, pharmacy”, recalls the IFGW professor.
Another perspective was that a researcher involved with a medical or biological issue, for example, would not have to waste time understanding how the equipment works and being able to use it. “In the discussion about the creation of INFABiC, a person from Biology said that there were two types of students: those who looked at very expensive equipment and were scared to death of using it, without getting any results; and the other, brave, who broke the microscope and no one used it anymore. The dean at the time, Professor Fernando Costa, responded to our request to hire two specialists with doctorate levels to operate the equipment. This was a big success factor, as the researcher trusts that his result will come out without needing to understand everything laser.”
On October 23rd, the 7th Theoretical-Practical Workshop took place, an annual event with lectures on different types of microscopy for users and researchers from different institutions in the country – and in which INFABiC became official as a Zeiss Center of Excellence. In the auditorium full of students and researchers, Christian Hellriegel, specialist at the Zeiss Center of Excellence at the Harvard Center for Biological Imaging, spoke about his experiences in the area and then, at IFGW, demonstrated the new Super-Resolution acquired by the Unicamp laboratory .
According to Carlos Lenz, the workshop took place not only as a result of the new equipment, but also as a result of negotiations between INFABiC and Zeiss for a longer-term agreement. “Regardless of the new microscopes, all the ones we previously purchased were also Zeiss. As we already had a huge structure and a very large number of users, we decided to transform INFABiC into a Zeiss center of excellence. We could have simply purchased the equipment and received training from the company, but now we have a multi-year agreement with commitment from both parties.”
Bruno Martins Lima, director of the Microscopy area at the German multinational, says that INFABiC researchers will have preference to observe and give their opinion on any new technology that the company introduces in the country. “They will be able to participate in the biennial meetings that we promote with all centers of excellence, with the idea of facilitating collaboration between them. We can also bring employees from South America to learn about the center and our technologies. There is a whole consideration to make the partnership lasting, and the contract does not provide for monetary remuneration; the company will open credit that can be converted into more products and services.”
Lima informs that Zeiss was created 172 years ago and has 30 employees worldwide, being directly present in 40 countries – in Brazil, for 90 years, being the second oldest German multinational established here. “We have four business groups: microscopy, which we came to discuss today; the medical field, with an emphasis on ophthalmology and neurosurgery; industrial methodology, with high precision measurement in the automotive and space industries; and eyeglass lenses, with its own factory in Petrópolis. Zeiss today has the largest installed base of high-precision optical equipment for the life sciences area.”
Applications
Professor Carlos Lenz, a physicist in the field of optics and photonics, explains that optics has become fundamental to cell biology as it deals with the only techniques that make it possible to observe events happening in real time. “Mass spectrometry, for example, is a destructive technique, in which you take a piece of the sample and, when you go to do the analysis, you don’t see anything happening. Optics is the only technique with the sensitivity to observe a single molecule; others could reach a molecule, but with an absurdly long observation time, while in optics the time is so short that its movement can be followed.”
For Francisco Breno Teófilo, an IB master's student supervised by professor Hernandes Carvalho, the two new super-resolution microscopes are extremely important for the development of cutting-edge research in the area of cell biology. “Super-Resolution allows us to elucidate certain aspects that we could not observe with other equipment. In my case, as I investigate mitochondria in the prostate, high-resolution equipment is essential to understand the structure of this organelle. The use of these technologies has been growing in the study of mitochondria in research related to metabolism.”
Isabella Barbutti Gonçalves, also advised by Hernandes Carvalho, is at the end of her doctorate, studying a protein that should not be present in prostate cells – and which, with the new microscopes, can be observed in 3D. “The protein is normally in the bloodstream. With this equipment I can better see in which cells and regions of cells the protein is present or not. One of the most important aspects is the possibility of culturing the cell three-dimensionally, making it more similar to a normal prostate compared to the two-dimensional model.”