InMagiC (INMED iMAGing Center) is the microscopy platform of the Institute of Neurobiology of the Mediterranean: INMED in Marseille on the Luminy campus.
The platform is under the scientific direction of Rosa COSSART and under the responsibility of the engineer François MICHEL rosa.cossart@inserm.fr / francois.michel@inserm.fr
INMAGIC gathers in one place the multi-scale study tools necessary to study the development and the physio-pathological functioning of the central nervous system.
These tools cover the scales of observation from the whole animal (binocular loupes) to the dynamic morphology of neuronal contacts (synapses) thanks to widefield, confocal and multiphoton microscopes.
In addition, the platform provides a large number of training courses at all levels, both theoretical and practical, for all audiences (students, engineers, researchers, etc.).
The strong and original points of our structure are:
- A space dedicated to the techniques of tissue clearing and the acquisition of these samples by an ultramicroscope (light sheet) in platform access, as well as the expertise of the engineer in charge (active member of the GT transparencies of the RTMFM);
- The use of the multiphoton microscopy for the fast measurement (10-20 Hz) of the neuronal activity in vitro and in vivo on large populations of cells (up to more than 500 simultaneous cells).
Two high performance analysis stations are also available to all users. They include free and commercial software dedicated to analysis such as FIJI, ICY, IMARIS, Neurolucida360, Matlab…
Finally, the platform is a laureate of the PIA Equipex + 2020 and in this context the availability of tools beyond the state of the art in minimally invasive in vivo imaging will soon be open to the community.
These new tools will be commercial with industrial co-developments: a 3-photon excitation microscope, an ultra-fast AOD scanning microscope, a 2-photon endoscope or in academic development with the collaboration of the Fresnel Institute such as an ultra-thin endoscope and a deep recording station by photo-acoustics.