News › ZEISS • Doubling the Reso­lu­tion of Struc­tu­red Illu­mi­na­tion Microscopy

New Image Recon­s­truc­tion Algo­rithm Enhan­ces Super-Reso­lu­tion Micro­scope ZEISS Elyra 7

ZEISS intro­du­ces SIM², a ground­brea­king image recon­s­truc­tion algo­rithm that increa­ses the reso­lu­tion and sec­tio­ning qua­lity of struc­tu­red illu­mi­na­tion micro­scopy (SIM) data. With SIM² on the micro­scope sys­tem ZEISS Elyra 7, life sci­ence rese­ar­chers can now dou­ble the con­ven­tio­nal SIM reso­lu­tion and dis­cri­mi­nate the finest sub­cel­lu­lar struc­tures of living and fixed samples, even those no more than 60 nm apart.

SIM is an estab­lished grid-based illu­mi­na­tion tech­ni­que that allows ima­ging at reso­lu­ti­ons bey­ond the dif­frac­tion limit of opti­cal micro­scopy. With the intro­duc­tion of ZEISS Lat­tice SIM two years ago, ZEISS went a step fur­ther and com­bi­ned the reso­lu­tion advan­ta­ges of SIM with a dra­ma­tic increase in ima­ging speed and detec­tion sen­si­ti­vity, making the super-reso­lu­tion micro­scope ZEISS Elyra 7 a pre­fer­red choice for live cell ima­ging. With SIM², the con­sis­tent efforts to fur­ther deve­lop the ZEISS super-reso­lu­tion tech­no­logy are now taking ano­ther step fur­ther, allo­wing rese­ar­chers to exceed pre­vious limits of reso­lu­tion, ima­ging speed, and gentleness.

New Algo­rithm Enhan­ces Reso­lu­tion, Sec­tio­ning, and Robustness

The new recon­s­truc­tion algo­rithm SIM² is supe­rior to con­ven­tio­nal image recon­s­truc­tion methods in terms of reso­lu­tion, sec­tio­ning, and robust­ness – all wit­hout the need for tailor-made stai­ning pro­to­cols or expert know­ledge of com­plex micro­scopy tech­ni­ques. SIM² not just resol­ves struc­tures down to 60 nm but allows super-reso­lu­tion and high-dyna­mic ima­ging at the same time – indis­pensable neces­si­ties to observe fast bio­lo­gi­cal pro­ces­ses in living cells or organisms.

Living Bio­lo­gi­cal Samples at Reso­lu­ti­ons Well Below 100 nm

With SIM², rese­ar­chers can now, for the first time, view details of living bio­lo­gi­cal samples at reso­lu­ti­ons well below 100 nm – with speeds of up to 255 frames per second. The ease of access to this high spa­tio­tem­po­ral reso­lu­tion will enable new dis­co­veries of sub­cel­lu­lar func­tional prin­ci­ples and con­tri­bute to a bet­ter under­stan­ding of the dis­tri­bu­tion and archi­tec­ture of orga­nel­les. Rese­ar­chers in deve­lo­p­men­tal bio­logy, neu­ro­sci­ence, plant sci­en­ces, and neigh­bor­ing disci­pli­nes will gain more insights into their model orga­nisms and spe­ci­mens by reve­al­ing fast cel­lu­lar pro­ces­ses, resol­ving struc­tures in 3D with high pene­tra­tion depth, and inves­ti­ga­ting struc­tu­ral chan­ges at the mole­cu­lar level.

Cus­to­mers who have been par­ti­ci­pa­ting in a beta test pro­gram imme­dia­tely reco­gni­zed the poten­tial of ZEISS Elyra 7 with Lat­tice SIM² for their rese­arch and expres­sed enthu­si­asm in view of the new pos­si­bi­li­ties. Peter O’Toole, Head of Ima­ging and Cyto­me­try at the Uni­ver­sity of York: “I remem­ber see­ing the first results. I could only laugh as I was sim­ply ama­zed. My next reac­tion was to email some of the key users who could imme­dia­tely bene­fit. From the tis­sue neu­ro­bio­lo­gists, to cell and mole­cu­lar immu­no­lo­gists, to those working with yeast and those working with bac­te­ria, all of them are alre­ady gai­ning from SIM².”

With the intro­duc­tion of SIM², ZEISS is taking the next step to con­ti­nuously deve­lop ZEISS Elyra 7 into the major plat­form for live cell-com­pa­ti­ble super-reso­lu­tion micro­scopy. This unders­cores the ZEISS drive to make advan­ced ima­ging tech­no­logy easily acces­si­ble to the sci­en­ti­fic community.

About ZEISS

ZEISS is an inter­na­tio­nally lea­ding tech­no­logy enter­prise ope­ra­ting in the fields of optics and opto­elec­tro­nics. In the pre­vious fis­cal year, the ZEISS Group gene­ra­ted annual reve­nue tota­ling 6.3 bil­lion euros in its four seg­ments Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech­no­logy, Indus­trial Qua­lity & Rese­arch, Medi­cal Tech­no­logy and Con­su­mer Mar­kets (sta­tus: 30 Sep­tem­ber 2020).

For its cus­to­mers, ZEISS deve­lops, pro­du­ces and dis­tri­bu­tes highly inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for indus­trial metro­logy and qua­lity assu­rance, micro­scopy solu­ti­ons for the life sci­en­ces and mate­ri­als rese­arch, and medi­cal tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons for dia­gno­stics and tre­at­ment in oph­thal­mo­logy and micro­sur­gery. The name ZEISS is also syn­ony­mous with the world’s lea­ding litho­gra­phy optics, which are used by the chip indus­try to manu­fac­ture semi­con­duc­tor com­pon­ents. There is glo­bal demand for trend­set­ting ZEISS brand pro­ducts such as eye­glass len­ses, camera len­ses and binoculars.

With a port­fo­lio ali­gned with future growth areas like digi­ta­liza­tion, health­care and Smart Pro­duc­tion and a strong brand, ZEISS is sha­ping the future of tech­no­logy and con­stantly advan­cing the world of optics and rela­ted fields with its solu­ti­ons. The company’s signi­fi­cant, sus­tainable invest­ments in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment lay the foun­da­tion for the suc­cess and con­tin­ued expan­sion of ZEISS‹ tech­no­logy and mar­ket lea­der­ship. ZEISS invests 13 per­cent of its reve­nue in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment – this high level of expen­dit­ure has a long tra­di­tion at ZEISS and is also an invest­ment in the future.

With over 32,000 employees, ZEISS is active glo­bally in almost 50 count­ries with around 30 pro­duc­tion sites, 60 sales and ser­vice com­pa­nies and 27 rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment faci­li­ties. Foun­ded in 1846 in Jena, the com­pany is head­quar­te­red in Ober­ko­chen, Ger­many. The Carl Zeiss Foun­da­tion, one of the lar­gest foun­da­ti­ons in Ger­many com­mit­ted to the pro­mo­tion of sci­ence, is the sole owner of the hol­ding com­pany, Carl Zeiss AG.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion at www.zeiss.com

ZEISS Rese­arch Micro­scopy Solutions

ZEISS Rese­arch Micro­scopy Solu­ti­ons is the world’s only one-stop manu­fac­tu­rer of light, elec­tron, X‑ray and ion micro­scope sys­tems and offers solu­ti­ons for cor­re­la­tive micro­scopy. The port­fo­lio com­pri­ses of pro­ducts and ser­vices for life sci­en­ces, mate­ri­als and indus­trial rese­arch, as well as edu­ca­tion and cli­ni­cal prac­tice. The unit is head­quar­te­red in Jena. Addi­tio­nal pro­duc­tion and deve­lo­p­ment sites are loca­ted in Ober­ko­chen and Munich, as well as in Cam­bourne (UK) and Plea­san­ton (USA). ZEISS Rese­arch Micro­scopy Solu­ti­ons is part of the Indus­trial Qua­lity & Rese­arch segment.

Press Cont­act

Vyb­hav Sinha
ZEISS Rese­arch Micro­scopy Solutions
+49 3641 64–3949
moc.ssiez@ahnis.vahbyv