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!

How to Keep Your Samples Under Physiological Conditions

The Coral Life workflow combines dynamic data with the best possible sample fixation by high pressure freezing. However, good sample preservation won’t help if your cells are stressed by temperature…

Putting Dynamic Live Cell Data into the Ultrastructural Context

With workflow Coral Life, searching for a needle in the haystack is a thing of the past. Take advantage of correlative light and electron microscopy to identify directly the right cell at the right…

Exploring the Structure and Life Cycle of Viruses

The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak started in late December 2019 and has since reached a global pandemic, leading to a worldwide battle against COVID-19. The ever-evolving electron microscopy methods offer a…

Investigating Synapses in Brain Slices with Enhanced Functional Electron Microscopy

A fundamental question of neuroscience is: what is the relationship between structural and functional properties of synapses? Over the last few decades, electrophysiology has shed light on synaptic…

Workflows and Instrumentation for Cryo-electron Microscopy

Cryo-electron microscopy is an increasingly popular modality to study the structures of macromolecular complexes and has enabled numerous new insights in cell biology. In recent years, cryo-electron…

Ultrastructural Preservation and Improved Visualization of Membranes in Primary Bovine Chromaffin Cells

Intracellular dynamic events, such as protein trafficking, recycling, and degradation as well as signal transduction, to name a few, can be studied using live-cell imaging techniques. However,…

Bridging Structure and Dynamics at the Nanoscale through Optogenetics and Electrical Stimulation

Nanoscale ultrastructural information is typically obtained by means of static imaging of a fixed and processed specimen. However, this is only a snapshot of one moment within a dynamic system in…

Superior Ultrastructural Preservation and Structural Contrast in Drosophila Tissue

Optimal structural preservation of tissue can only be obtained by high pressure freezing. However, preparing the samples in optimal conditions is challenging. This article explains in detail how to…

Maple (Acer saccharum) Leaves - High Pressure Freezing and Freeze Substitution for TEM

Application Note for Leica EM HPM100 - Leaves were immersed in hexadecene and placed under a gentle (0.3 bar) vacuum for 10 minutes to evacuate the internal air spaces. The leaves were then trimmed to…