The Microscopy at the Wilmer Eye Institute (MWEI) is located on the mezzanine and third floors of the Robert H. and Clarice Smith Building at the Wilmer Eye Institute. The facility comprises 1,500 square feet of lab space and provides state of the art light and electron microscopic instruments, as well as consultation to Wilmer researchers. MWEI staff members are committed to provide equipment support and consultation for experimental designs involved in cell imaging, instrument selection, instrument training, sample preparation, and image analysis to its users. 

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Training and Facility Access

Training for the independent use of instruments is available by appointment only and depends upon instrument availability.

The MWEI is accessible via a keycard system to approved users who have been trained to work independently. Your badge number and name will be submitted for coding by the facility administrator once you have completed training. Authorized users may bring associates from the same lab for observation of microscopy experiments. Other activities, such as instrument demonstration, teaching, and facility tours, must be pre-authorized with the facility administrator. Instruments involved in such activities should be reserved for these purposes.

Facility Regulations

Many groups rely heavily upon the microscopy equipment in the facility for their research. It is crucial that every user follows the Facility User Guide and the regulations below to guarantee the smooth function of the facility.

• Failure to cancel sessions with sufficient notice may result in the institution of a penalty fee. Please help us avoid this by finding a substitute user to take the reserved time, such as a lab mate or the person signed up ahead of or behind you.
• Starting 1/1/20, the TEM, Confocals and Ultramicrotomes are charged for hourly use. For cancellations less than 24 hours in advance, the reservation can be deleted without penalty. If you wish to cancel less than 24 hours before the start of your reservation, a half hour minimum reservation will remain on the calendar (to be charged as late cancellation fee). Instead you will “release” the balance of your reservation, allowing others to book the remainder of the time.
• Authorized TEM and Confocal users are added to their respective users email group as part of their onboarding. Here you can announce cancellations occurring less than 24 hours in advance to alert other users that the time is available to book. Always remember to cancel first, email second. If you are going to take a newly opened spot, reserve it first, then reply all to the email that you took it.

Data backup

Each user is responsible for saving their data to a USB type portable media for transfer to their own workstation. This includes the Zeiss LSM 880, Zeiss LSM 710, Zeiss LSM 510 Confocals and Hitachi H7600 TEM

The MWEI staff will not be responsible for checking image archives prior to periodic purges of data hard drives. The LSM 880, LSM 710, LSM 510, and H7600 TEM  are not networked to protect them from viruses, spyware, and misuse.