NINDS 25-006541

Statement of Need and Purpose:. In fulfilling the requirements of Dr. Michael Ward's laboratory at the NIH, where the focus lies on studying mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases, a new fluorescent illumination light source is needed for their optical pooled screen microscope. Traditional light sources, such as the current “white” LED illuminator used on the Ward lab microscope, do not provide sufficient illumination power for critical wavelengths of new dyes used in this lab, such as ATTO 750, nor do they sufficiently excite fluorophores used in illumina sequencing reagent kits such as miseq and novaseq x; these are critical for multi-spectral optical pooled screens. Finally, traditional white light illuminators can only efficiently excite a single fluorophore at a time, and require filter wheels to control the excitation wavelength. The Ward lab optical pooled screen microscope requires multiple excitation wavelengths to be used in parallel or in rapid sequence, which is difficult or impossible to do using filter wheel base systems. The Lumencor Spectra III light engine addresses these challenges by combining eight solid state light sources into a single light engine coupled with a liquid light guide that attaches to the microscope. Each light source is far higher in wattage than a traditional “white” light LED, and each light source can be independently controlled over millisecond time scales, either as a single light or in combinations, by the Nikon microscope hardware.  By investing in this Lumencor spectra III light engine, the laboratory can accelerate its research progress, enhance data quality, and gain deeper insights into complex mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative diseases, ultimately contributing to advancements in biomedical science.

Background Information and Objective: This fluorescent illumination source will be attached to a current Nikon epifluorescent and will replace an outdated single white LED illumination source that is insufficient for current optical pooled screen experiments in the lab.

Generic Name of Product: epifluorescent light source qty 1

Salient Characteristics: The Lumencor SPECTRA Light Engine is a solid-state illumination system featuring eight individually addressable light sources—including LEDs, luminescent light pipes and lasers—each delivering approximately half a watt of optical power at the distal end of a 3 mm liquid light guide; its outputs are refined by band-pass filters and merged into a common optical train with a built-in adapter for direct coupling to inverted microscopes, and TTL trigger inputs on all channels support sub-100 µs switching, providing the spectral flexibility, brightness and temporal control needed by the Ward Lab at NIH to perform multiplexed immunofluorescence phenotyping of iPSC-derived neurons in neurodegeneration research followed by in situ sequencing of sgRNAs using Illumina MiSeq or NovaSeq X reagents.