Dear FILM Users, At the start of a new year I wanted to update you on a couple of important matters. First the good news! - we have ordered a new Leica SP8 confocal microscope with HyD detectors to replace the ageing Zeiss LSM510 (CF5) which is no longer supported by Zeiss. The new confocal will be installed in room 410. which is currently being refurbished as a CL2 room to image live and low risk infectious material (after consultation with Health &Safety). This room will also be equipped with a biological safety cabinet to handle the CL2 samples, and hand wash facilities. The time frame is roughly two month from now. Once the SP8 is up and running, the old 510 will be decommissioned. The FILM Team will assist anyone who needs to transfer protocols over from the 510 to the SP8. The new SP8 will have the following capabilities: - Four spectral detectors, two of them sensitive HyD detectors - 405, 457, 488, 515, 561, 594, 633 laser lines - Normal and resonance scanner - Motorised stage - Range of objectives from 10x to 63x oil and 40x water - DIC imaging - Incubation chamber The not so good news - the new confocal has to be paid for! As many of you know, FILM functions as a College "Small Research Facility" and as such we are required to recover our costs annually. These costs cover equipment maintenance contracts, salaries of FILM staff (about 50% of these are covered on grants) and a modest running budget. Each year around this time we set our charges at rates which we predict will allow us to recover those costs, based on predicted usage of our equipment and services. That predicted usage is informed by our 11 years of experience of running FILM, so we're not bad at it by now. However, inevitably this is not an exact science but we just aim to get as close as possible to our predicted spend. We do not try to make any "profit" from usage - you are just paying the real running costs of the facility. In recent years when we have had minor underspends, i.e. when usage has been significantly higher than we predicted, our host Department NHLI has allowed us to buy two new widefield instruments (WF1 and WF3) to replace old instruments. These have significantly improved our WF capability, to your benefit. In the last few years, again because of good usage, we have been able to hold our prices or in some years actually reduce them, again to your benefit. The more you use the 'scopes, the cheaper they will get per hour! Replacing large pieces of kit like a confocal is a challenge! In previous years we have had some success with grant applications to BBSRC and Wellcome Trust that have allowed us to buy our high content system (WF4-HC) and superresolution (SR1) microscopes. However, in the last couple of years we have had two unsuccessful bids to replace our confocal. The strong impression we get is that equipment "replacement" is disfavoured relative to buying "new technology" and we are unlikely to be successful by this route. So, to get our new desperately needed confocal we have had to be creative and NHLI has bought this instrument on the basis that it's cost is paid back over 5 years. That means that we have had to increase our charges slightly this year to raise the extra income to cover the instrument purchase. The charges have changed from: Confocal p.h. £32 in 2017 to £35 in 2018 Widefield p.h. £20 in 2017 to £21 in 2018 Confocal with MP laser p.h. £50 2017 to £53 in 2018 Software p.h. £6 in 2017 stays at £6 in 2018 Staff time p.h. £33 in 2017 reduced to £29 in 2018 Charges will increase from Feb 1st We hope that you recognise the importance of this purchase and the improved capability it will give you, and accept the modest price increases. Rest assured that we will always try to keep our costs down as much as possible while providing you with the excellent service you've come to expect and receive. Please contact Andreas if you have any questions or concerns. Many thanks for your understanding. Best regards and good imaging! Tony and Andreas ---------------------------------------------------- Dr Andreas Bruckbauer FILM facility manager Sir Alexander Fleming Building South Kensington Campus Imperial College London Exhibition Road London, SW7 2AZ SAF 4th floor, open space desk 401 +44 (0)20 7594 2023 a.bruckbauer@imperial.ac.uk<mailto:a.bruckbauer@imperial.ac.uk> http://www.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/facility-for-imaging-by-light-microscopy/ ----------------------------------------------------