Project Summary/Abstract: This application is to purchase a Nikon CSU-W1 SoRa for rapid super resolution imaging to facilitate live cell imaging. The Center for Advanced Microscopy (CAM) has been supporting super resolution microscopy for almost 10 years both with STORM and SIM microscopy methods. The overwhelming majority of CAM’s super resolution imaging has been performed in fixed samples. This is because STORM is not readily compatible for live imaging, and our SIM system uses traditional diffraction grating to generate the illumination pattern, which is too slow for many dynamic cellular processes. Additionally, SIM imaging depends on generating illumination patters on the sample, which degrade as one images deeper into tissue. The Nikon SoRa can produce super resolution images, similar in resolution to those generated by the SIM system at a much faster capture rate of up to 30 frames per second. Another advancement is that the SoRa system does not need diffraction grating (unlike the SIM) to produce super resolution images allowing for deeper imaging into samples. The 7 NIH funded investigators listed within this proposal have experimental needs that hinge on the ability to visualize structures using super resolution in tissue or live samples. These investigators are unable to perform these experiments with our current instrumentation as CAM’s SIM system is not capable of taking images at the speeds and depths required by these investigators. Their research has a broad range of impact and address basic science research as well as disease research on cancer, inflammation, vascular, neurological disorders and autoimmune diseases. Additionally, while our SIM system is still suitable to fixed sample imaging, and still operational, the instrument is end of life and parts are no longer being manufactured should it fail. The acquisition of the SoRa would enhance the research to 11 NIH funded grants and offer additional imaging capabilities to investigators at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine as well as the Chicago scientific community.