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Science Lab

Science Lab

Science Lab

The knowledge portal of Leica Microsystems offers scientific research and teaching material on the subjects of microscopy. The content is designed to support 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!
Fluorescence microscope image of a life-science specimen

An Introduction to Fluorescence

This article gives an introduction to fluorescence and photoluminescence, which includes phosphorescence, explains the basic theory behind them, and how fluorescence is used for microscopy.

Factors to Consider When Selecting a Research Microscope

An optical microscope is often one of the central devices in a life-science research lab. It can be used for various applications which shed light on many scientific questions. Thereby the…

Microscopy in Virology

The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, causing the Covid-19 disease effects our world in all aspects. Research to find immunization and treatment methods, in other words to fight this virus, gained highest…
Steps of Koehler Illumination

Koehler Illumination: A Brief History and a Practical Set Up in Five Easy Steps

In this article, we will look at the history of the technique of Koehler Illumination in addition to how to adjust the components in five easy steps.
Mammalian cell culure. Phase contrast and fluorescence image.

Introduction to Mammalian Cell Culture

Mammalian cell culture is one of the basic pillars of life sciences. Without the ability to grow cells in the lab, the fast progress in disciplines like cell biology, immunology, or cancer research…
Convalaria

Introduction to Widefield Microscopy

This article gives an introduction to widefield microscopy, one of the most basic and commonly used microscopy techniques. It also shows the basic differences between widefield and confocal…
Dronpa chromophore

Photoactivatable, Photoconvertible, and Photoswitchable Fluorescent Proteins

Fluorescent proteins (FPs) such as GFP, YFP or DsRed are powerful tools to visualize cellular components in living cells. Nevertheless, there are circumstances when classical FPs reach their limits.…
Left: Tissue cells marked with an immunolabel (FITC) illuminated with wide-band UV excitation. Note the tissue structure with blue autofluorescence. Right: Same tissue and same immunostaining with FITC label illuminated with epi-illumination using narrow-band blue (490 nm) light. Note the increased image contrast (Ploem, 1967)

Milestones in Incident Light Fluorescence Microscopy

Since the middle of the last century, fluorescence microscopy developed into a bio scientific tool with one of the biggest impacts on our understanding of life. Watching cells and proteins with the…
HeLa cells stimulated with LPS. Image has been subjected to deconvolution.

Chronic Inflammation Under the Microscope

In the course of chronic inflammation certain body areas are recurrently inflamed. This goes along with many human diseases. With the help of widefield light microscopy, the underlying processes can…
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