Lights, insights, action
Tractography analysis of networks in the brain. Photo: Dr Govinda Poudel, Monash Biomedical Imaging
Scientists whose research puts them at the frontline of the war against devastating diseases and complex scientific challenges can draw on an arsenal of world-class technology at Monash University.
Progress against cancer, heart disease, immune disorders, neurological disease and many other afflictions relies increasingly on advanced imaging techniques that allow greater knowledge of interactions at the smallest scale – knowledge that in turn drives the capacity to develop and deliver new treatments, materials and devices.
When the new Clive and Vera Ramaciotti Centre for Single Particle Cryo Electron Microscopy (CryoEM) opens in the heart of the University’s Science and Technology Research Innovation Precinct at Clayton next year, researchers will benefit from a suite of high-end electron microscopes that will be integrated with our complementary structural biology tools.
This world-class facility will allow unprecedented insights into the structure and function of proteins, said Professor James Whisstock of Monash University’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
“The new infrastructure will provide us with a world leading capability in electron microscopy, and will permit us to determine structures of weakly interacting complexes that cannot be resolved with current crystallographic approaches,” Professor Whisstock said.
The CryoEM platform, representing a $4 million-plus investment, is just the latest addition to the range of imaging technology platforms already available at Monash University.
The multimodal Monash Biomedical Imaging (MBI) centre, co-located with the Australian Synchrotron Imaging and Medical Beam Line, contains advanced biomedical imaging equipment including pre-clinical and clinical MRI, PET and CT scanners.
MBI Director, Professor Gary Egan said the equipment was critical for scientists engaged in high resolution structural and functional brain mapping research.
“The recently established Monash Biomedical Imaging supports cognitive and fundamental neuroscience researchers tackling the challenging problems involved in understanding how the human brain works,” Professor Egan said.
At the cellular imaging level, the Monash Micro Imaging facility provides state-of-the-art optical and fluorescence microscopy, confocal microscopy and live cell imaging.
The extensive bio-imaging capabilities at Monash are complemented by the advanced set of non-bio electron microscopes at the Monash Centre for Electron Microscopy, which can determine the composition, structure and bonding of materials down to the atomic scale. The centre houses Australia’s only “double-aberration-corrected” electron microscope, the highest-resolution microscope in the country.
The world-class infrastructure provided by the imaging research platforms supports researchers from an array of disciplines as they develop the next-generation imaging approaches to solve complex scientific challenges with unprecedented atomic, molecular, cellular and animal detail.