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Hello!

I am an administrator/manager for the Optical Microscopy Core at Mayo Clinic in Rochester.  We have a group of PIs that is advocating for the purchase of the IVM-CMS3 (Confocal and Two Photon) - all-in-one intravital imaging platform - to be placed in and managed by our Core.  Our Core currently facilitates zero live animal imaging workflows, so we are not well equipped to evaluate this instrument.  Most of our equipment right now is also "self-service" (we do provide training), so a concern of ours is "can users become independent on this instrument? or will we need to plan for more dedicated support?"

Does anyone have experience they can share?  Are there other competing platforms to consider?

Thanks in advance,

MaKayla

MaKalya - we just got one of these at Cold Spring Harbor Lab. It is being managed by our Animal Imaging core, but we involved both the Microscropy core and the Animal facility expertise in assessing the feasibility and other details (location, management, workflow etc.) as well as talking to the various PIs on their usage and needs. It took several months, including the vendor bringing a unit for a few days for people to try out. You definitely need to include your animal facility director, especially if you will be needing imaging over 24 hrs. It is "user operated" mainly (so far), but the users have to have some training to access; the Animal Imaging core is responsible for overseeing any repairs, squabbles, service contract, etc. Will see how that all goes... but it is a powerful instrument for those wanting a relatively "easy" way to do in vivo imaging.

Sydney