Assistant Professor Xiaoyu Shi from the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology has received a $400,000 grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Advancing Imaging Through Collaborative Projects program.
This grant will support Professor Shi’s project, which aims to disseminate a chemical-based super-resolution microscopy method called Label-Retention Expansion Microscopy (LR-ExM) to a wider audience. This method uses novel chemical probes to enable deep tissue super-resolution microscopy with conventional fluorescence microscopes, and its high imaging quality and low-cost features make it a promising tool for dissemination in academia and industry. The team, which also includes Co-PI Professor Elizabeth Head from the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, will fill the three gaps that prevent LR-ExM from becoming more widespread by validating the method in a wide range of model systems through collaborative projects, outsourcing pilot-scale synthesis to companies, and building capacity in Latin America and Africa through imaging networks.
Congratulations to Professor Shi on receiving this award, which will allow her and her team to disseminate this powerful imaging tool and build scientific capacity in Latin America and Africa.