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!

Precise Spatial Proteomic Information in Tissues

Despite the availability of imaging-based and mass-spectrometry-based methods for spatial proteomics, a key challenge remains connecting images with single-cell-resolution protein abundance…

Images of smooth muscle cells during wound healing. Courtesy L.S. Shankman, Ph.D., University of Virginia.

Studying Wound Healing of Smooth Muscle Cells

This article discusses how wound healing of cultured smooth muscle cells (SMCs) in multiwell plates can be reliably studied over time with less effort using a specially configured Leica inverted…

A Quality Metric for the Systematic Evaluation of Clearing Protocols

3D multicellular spheroids are of interest for studying tumor behavior and evaluating the response of pharmacologically active agents, because they mimic the in vivo tumor environment better than…

Coronavirus Replication in Host Cells

In this study, a molecular pore complex, which spans both membranes of SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 virus-induced cytosolic vesicles and likely plays a role in replication, was visualized.

Upright Fluorescence Microscopy for Virus Replication Studies

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in late 2019 and spread over the world quickly. Due to its dramatic impact, researchers are interested in the nature of the…

Mammalian cells can be distinguished according to their morphology. Fibroblasts (left) have a bipolar or multipolar shape. Epithelial-like cells (middle) show more regular dimensions and lymphoblast-like cells (right) are round and grow in suspension.

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…

Microscope image of cultured cells at the bottom of a dish.

How to do a Proper Cell Culture Quick Check

In order to successfully work with mammalian cell lines, they must be grown under controlled conditions and require their own specific growth medium. In addition, to guarantee consistency their growth…

Dry Ultrathin Sectioning Combined With High Pressure Freezing

We have used cultured UMR106-01 osteoblastic cells to investigate the process of bone mineralization. UMR106-01 cells as well as primary calvarial bone cells assembly spherical extracellular…