Interview with Magali Mondin on THUNDER Imagers

Magali Mondin, engineer at the CNRS, in the Photonic Microscopy Unit of the BIC (Bordeaux Imaging Center UMS 3420) in France. I am responsible for super-resolution applications, user training, development of imaging protocols, and assisting users with analysis. Our users are mainly working in the neurosciences and oncology.

I was pleasantly surprised by the images obtained with the THUNDER system and particularly by the improvement brought by the ICC (Instant Computational Clearing) treatment. On many of the samples we tested (immuno-labeled brain slices, cell cultures), this simple treatment was sufficient to improve the contrast and facilitate the segmentation of the sample features of interest. We also had the opportunity to test the THUNDER system on spheroid-type samples with which we could really appreciate the combined effect of ICC treatment and deconvolution in order to get rid of the out-of-focus blur and obtain high-contrast images.

Personally, I had no particular expectations before these tests, because I am very used to deconvolution, so I had a preconceived notion of interest. The system, therefore, exceeded my "expectations" in terms of speed, integration, and efficiency of ICC processing.

At the scale of the platform, we were curious to evaluate the positioning of this system within the range of our equipment (widefield systems, confocal scanning systems, spinning-discs...). These tests allowed us to identify different types of research questions that the THUNDER system could answer more efficiently or more simply than the tools currently proposed.

The samples for which the THUNDER system has shown the most immediate interest among our users are the marked tissue samples. In this context, what really impressed us was the global integration making image acquisition very simple. Indeed, between the ease of defining the areas to be imaged with the Navigator module, the simplicity of defining the acquisition settings, and the integration of the processing tools (ICC & deconvolution), the handling of the system is done in a very simple and fast way, ideal for a platform!

Simple and efficient (oops that's 2 words...)