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…

Single timepoint of a drosophilia embryo, 3D object detection

Examining Critical Developmental Events in High-Definition

Extended live cell imaging of embryo development requires a delicate balance between light exposure, temporal resolution and spatial resolution to maintain cells’ viability. Compromises between the…

Pollen Flower - Taken with a 20x/0.8 objective, area of 6mm² with a depth of 100μm. 15 stitched tiles with 4 colors (DAPI/GFP/TRITC/Cy5) - a total of 13020 images. Video courtesy of James Marr, Leica Microsystems, USA

Developmental Biology Image Gallery

Developmental biology explores the development of complex organisms from the embryo to adulthood to understand in detail the origins of disease. This category of the gallery shows images about…

Understanding Motor Sequence Generation Across Spatiotemporal Scales

We have developed a microscopy-based pipeline to characterize a developmentally critical behavior at the pupal stage of development, called the ecdysis sequence. We study brain-wide neuronal activity…

Mouse lymphnode acquired with a THUNDER Imager 3D Cell Culture. Image courtesy of Dr. Selina Keppler, Munich, Germany.

Image Gallery: THUNDER Imager

To help you answer important scientific questions, THUNDER Imagers eliminate the out-of-focus blur that clouds the view of thick samples when using camera-based fluorescence microscopes. They achieve…

Fluorescence stereo microscope image of anesthetized Mediterranean fruit flies recorded with a M205 stereo microscope.

Investigating Fruit Flies (Drosophila melanogaster)

Learn how to image and investigate Drosophila fruit fly model organisms efficiently with a microscope for developmental biology applications from this article.