The Microscopy business group at Carl Zeiss presented a new technology at the annual meeting for the Society for Neuroscience, which took place Oct. 13–17, 2012, in New Orleans. The Lightsheet Z.1 provides biologists with a new method of imaging dynamic processes in living organisms.

Biologists can use the new microscopy system to observe the development of entire organisms throughout several days or more. The extremely low phototoxicity and the integrated incubation enable gentle imaging of specimens, which takes hours to days. On large objects in particular, such as fruit fly or zebra fish embryos, the light sheet microscope delivers more information than established methods of fluorescence microscopy. “The bigger the sample, the more you can get out of it with light sheet microscopy," says Pavel Tomančák from the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, describing the benefits of the new method. Lightsheet Z.1 can also be used in marine and cell biology, as well as plant physiology.

 …