The PICsL is located on the Luminy campus on two sites (IBDM and CIML ) that are within walking distance of each other. The PICSL offers a variety of state-of-the art imaging systems (multiphoton, confocal imaging, light sheet microscopy, super-resolution microscopy, electron microscopy). Mainly dedicated to developmental biology and immunology, the PICSL facility provides approaches for dynamic imaging, such as light sheet microscopy, super-resolution for tissue imaging (STED), multiphoton imaging but also more standard techniques such as time lapse imaging and confocal microscopy. Such methods are key to study quantitatively, the development of various animal species, and to decipher the operating mechanisms of the immune system, from molecules to whole organisms, such as Drosophila, C. elegans, Xenopus, chick, mice but also organotypic cultures and more recently organoids. The IBDM site also hosts an electron microscopy (EM) service. The EM service provides the scientific community with the expertise, material and electron microscopes necessary for molecular, cellular and tissue-level imaging by EM. Our service offer comprises the sample preparation with the following methods: negative staining, plastic embedding, immuno-labelling, high pressure freezing, freeze substitution, (cryo)-ultramicrotomy. We routinely use advanced imaging modes such as electron tomography (ET), Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM), Scanning Electron Microscopy in « Serial Block-Face » mode, Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy (CLEM).
Microscopy systems available @PICsL
