NeurImag

NeurImag is a service and R&D Cell and Tissue imaging core facility of the Institute of Psychiatry and Neuroscience of Paris (IPNP, INSERM U1266 – Université de Paris) since October 2017. It is divided in Imaging services using photonic microscopy, and primary cell culture services that provide neuronal cells and tissue to solve biological questions through live and super-resolution imaging.
NeurImag manages 7 light microscopy systems for (A) the observation of biological macromolecular structures (full field) with very high spatial (3 confocal, 1 Airyscan confocal,  1 super-resolution SIM1 and 1 STED2) and temporal (spinning-disk) resolution or high molecular localization precision (2 super-resolution PALM3 and dSTORM4), (B) monitoring macromolecular dynamics and interaction within cells and/or living organism with minimal phototoxicity (full field, spinning-disk and fast Airyscan confocal) and (C) spectroscopy approaches for monitoring intracellular and molecular dynamics using light manipulation (spinning-disk with laser ablation and FRAP5 addons) and fluorescent lifetime decay measurements (fast-FLIM6 confocal) respectively. NeurImag also provides 3 workstations directly connected to microscope computers for image processing and data analysis using free- and commercial software such as ImageJ, ICY, Huygens, iLastik, Neurolucida, Volocity, Zen Blue (Zeiss), SRX (Bruker) and MatLab.
The NeurImag cell and tissue culture services offers a unique service for biological sample preparation ranging from cells (primary culture of hippocampal/cortical neurons or glial cells of rodents, cells lines and tissues) with the optimization of immunofluorescence labeling or transfecting protocols to the management of human biological samples from the Pathology department of GHU-Paris/Sainte-Anne Medical Center, located on the same campus. The service is equipped with 6 biosafety level2-culture rooms including 15 Class II A2 biosafety cabinet, 18 CO2 incubators, 6 bench top centrifuge, 5 light microscope and one fluorescent microscope for a quick cell culture/transfection check. As an example, internal and external teams can buy weekly, plates of neurons seeded on glass coverslips to directly proceed for imaging or transfection.