Graduate and undergraduate research in Plant Biology requires tools and instrumentation that is not available to the average citizen. In order to probe the inner working of plant cells and tissues we need to be able to observe cell structure and function directly and in real time. For this reason, we depend heavily on the use of specialized equipment, and particularly on various kinds of microscopy. Our microscopy suite provides many of these essential functions to our, students, faculty, and research staff. Among the tools available are:

• Polarized light microscopy, essential for understanding plant cell wall behavior and structure.  
• Differential Interference Contrast microscopy capable of resolving low-contrast living plant materials at the single-cell and multicellular levels. 
• Phase-contrast microscopy, suitable for studying both living and histological plant materials in section. 
• Fluorescence Microscopy, capable of identifying and visualizing individual cellular components directly by virtue of their intrinsic ability to fluoresce when illuminated with Ultra-Violet light, or by preparation with structure-specific fluorescent dyes. 
• Confocal Microscopy.  Most recently we have installed a new microscopy station comprising an Andor Dragonfly 200 “spinning disk” confocal microscope built around a Leitz upright microscope. Confocal microscopy allows the researcher to explore cell and tissue structure at the nanometer level in real time, following the path of individual molecules as they are transported from one location to another in living cells and between adjacent cells. Spinning Disk optical systems allow the study of thick specimens by accumulating images from successive planes of focus and using computer driven graphic reconstruction to generate three-dimensional images which can be rotated and manipulated.