Open-source MesoSPIM microscope

The IERP experimental unit is an INRAE infrastructure within the Animal Health Department dedicated to the in vivo study of emerging infectious and zoonotic diseases in model organisms (rodents and fish) and farmed species (fish). Open to the scientific community and acting as an interface between academic and private research, it offers access to confined facilities and a range of integrated services (production and breeding of rodents and fish, conducting animal experiments in infectious diseases, functional exploration (non-invasive phenotyping), R&D).

Over the past decade, the co-development of tissue clearing methods and three-dimensional fluorescence imaging techniques for thick tissues has led to significant advances in the understanding of complex biological processes in health. Transparent, unsectioned organs and organisms can thus be imaged in their entirety at cellular resolution but only few instruments are currently capable of imaging samples larger than 1 centimeter. 

In this context, the phenotyping platform of IERP unit and LuMin of ENS Paris-Saclay have assembled the 1st open-source mesoscopic scale selective plane illumination microscope (mesoSPIM) in France in open acess to the community at Paris-Saclay.