Leica Thunder
The Leica Thunder is an advanced microscope designed for the study of cell cultures and 3D assays such as tissues, organoids, embryos, and more. This microscope expands and enhances the service previously offered by the Leica DMIRE2 fluorescence microscope.
Equipment Features
The Leica Thunder system is fully automated and provides extremely fast control of stage positioning, focus, and fluorescent illumination. The system also offers a significant improvement in sensitivity thanks to its sCMOS camera (Leica K5), which has a quantum efficiency above 80%. In addition, this camera provides a very large field of view (18 mm diagonal), allowing the acquisition of image mosaics of entire tissue sections in just seconds. As a fluorescent light source, the microscope is equipped with an 8‑line LED system that covers the vast majority of existing fluorochromes within the visible range (395–730 nm). Finally, the Thunder system includes computational modules for background removal and deconvolution. These algorithms process images by reassigning out‑of‑focus light to the correct plane, producing results similar to those obtained with confocal microscopy.
The Thunder system is a highly sensitive and extremely fast fluorescence microscope that produces images free of background signal and out‑of‑focus light, typical of conventional fluorescence microscopy. It is therefore an excellent complement to the confocal microscopy systems also available in our Advanced Optical Microscopy laboratories (Diagonal, Clínic, and Bellvitge campuses).
Equipment Applications
- Observation of whole tissue sections or embryos (in mosaics) with up to four different fluorescent markers
- Counting/analysis of cellular markers across large regions (coverslips)
- Screening of markers in multi‑well plates
Funding: CCiTUB Collaboration with UB Faculties and Departments
The acquisition of this microscope was carried out through the “Grants for the renewal of obsolete scientific and technological research equipment at the University of Barcelona”, with the collaboration of the Genetics section of the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics, as well as the Faculty of Biology.
Location
The Leica Thunder system is located in the Advanced Optical Microscopy service of the Cellular Analysis Unit at the Diagonal and Clínic campuses (University of Barcelona – CCiTUB).
Document with more information about the equipment:[+].