Project Title: Structured-Illumination Light Sheet Microscopy of the zebrafish Central Nervous System

Project Duration: May 21 – July 28, 2018 (10 weeks), 40 hours per week.

Project Mentors –

• Primary Faculty Mentor (Name, Affiliation, website and Email/Phone):
  • Peter Kner, CENGR, knerlab.engr.uga.edu, kner@engr.uga.edu, 706-542-8966
• Secondary Faculty Mentor (Name, Affiliation, website and Email/Phone):
  • James Lauderdale, Franklin College, Dept. of Cell Biology, jdlauder@uga.edu
• Graduate Student/PostDoc mentors (Name, Affiliation and Email/Phone):
  • Yang Liu, CENGR, yang1990@uga.edu

Project Description:

The goal of this project is to develop fast three-dimensional Adaptive Optics Light Sheet imaging in order to image seizures in the central nervous system of zebrafish embryos with high axial resolution. Students working on this project will perform imaging experiments and develop software to both control the microscope and to develop the resulting images. The student will assist with sample preparation and be introduced to zebrafish biology and development.

REU Student Role and Responsibility:

The student will work with a graduate student to develop the Adaptive-Optics Light-Sheet control software and perform imaging experiments on both fluorescent test samples and live embryos to test the system and evaluate its performance on biological samples. The student will also assist in developing the software necessary to analyze the resulting images.

Expected Outcome for REU student:

We anticipate that this work will lead to a working system for high-resolution 3D imaging of zebrafish embryos, and expect to publish at least one paper on this work.