Science Lab

Learn. Share. Contribute. The knowledge portal of Leica Microsystems. Find scientific research and teaching material on the subject of microscopy. The portal supports beginners, experienced practitioners and scientists alike in their everyday work and experiments. Explore interactive tutorials and application notes, discover the basics of microscopy as well as high-end technologies. Become part of the Science Lab community and share your expertise.

A fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) observed with an Ivesta 3 stereo microscope during fly pushing (sorting of the flies). The scale bar length is 1 mm. Image courtesy of M. Benton, EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany.

A Guide to Using Microscopy for Drosophila (Fruit Fly) Research

The fruit fly, typically Drosophila melanogaster, has been used as a model organism for over a century. One reason is that many disease-related genes are shared between Drosophila and humans. It is…

Mouse brain slice which was immunostained with GFAP-A647 and imaged using a THUNDER Imager Tissue. Courtesy of H. Xu, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.

A Guide to Neuroscience Research

Neuroscience often requires investigating challenging specimens to better understand the nervous system and disorders. Leica microscopes helps neuroscientists obtain insights into neuronal functions.

Developing embryos of different species at different stages during the elongation of their posterior body axis, from left to right in developmental time. The labelled regions in red depict a region of undifferentiated cells called the tailbud, with the corresponding region generated from that tissue shaded in grey. Upper row: lamprey; middle row: catshark; bottom row, zebrafish. This figure has been adapted from the following publication: Steventon, B., Duarte, F., Lagadec, R., Mazan, S., Nicolas, J.-F., & Hirsinger, E. (2016). Species tailoured contribution of volumetric growth and tissue convergence to posterior body elongation in vertebrates. Development, 2016. 143(10):1732-41

How to Study Gene Regulatory Networks in Embryonic Development

Join Dr. Andrea Boni by attending this on-demand webinar to explore how light-sheet microscopy revolutionizes developmental biology. This advanced imaging technique allows for high-speed, volumetric…

Intestinal organoids label with FUCCI reporter to follow cell cycle dynamics. Courtesy of Franziska Moos. Liberali lab. FMI Basel (Switzerland).

Dual-View LightSheet Microscope for Large Multicellular Systems

Visualizing the dynamics of complex multicellular systems is a fundamental goal in biology. To address the challenges of live imaging over large spatiotemporal scales, Franziska Moos et. al. present…

Virally labeled neurons (red) and astrocytes (green) in a cortical spheroid derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells. THUNDER Model Organism Imager with a 2x 0.15 NA objective at 3.4x zoom was used to produce this 425 µm Z-stack (26 positions), which is presented here as an Extended Depth of Field (EDoF) projection. Images courtesy of Dr. Fikri Birey from the Dr. Sergiu Pasca laboratory at Stanford University, 3165 Porter Dr., Palo Alto, CA

Download The Guide to Live Cell Imaging

In life science research, live cell imaging is an indispensable tool to visualize cells in a state as in vivo as possible. This E-book reviews a wide range of important considerations to take to…

A Guide to Model Organisms in Research

A model organism is a species used by researchers to study specific biological processes. They have similar genetic characteristics to humans and are commonly used in research areas such as genetics,…