India Manufactures its First Indigenously Developed 3D Broad Spectrum Confocal Microscope

[Chanakya's_Chant]

Indigenous, Low-Cost Microscope Capable of 3D Images Developed

Representational Photo ​

NEW DELHI: In a boost to life sciences research, an indigenous and cost-effective confocal microscope has been developed in India which will provide three dimensional images.

Unlike conventional microscopes which give two dimensional images, the confocal microscope will enable to come up with 3D images. This plays a vital role in scientific understanding of nano-materials and biological objects.

At present, these are only available at limited number of science laboratories in India due to their prohibitive cost.

The microscope is a joint public-private partnership effort of the Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute, Kolkata - a research institute of Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research - and Vinish Technologies Pvt Ltd.

"Scientists also want to understand the spectroscopic behaviour of materials and this can be achieved only using Broad Spectrum Confocal Microscope. The unique nature of super continuum light makes spectral coverage for all forms of confocal microscopy and for fluorescence imaging over wide range of wavelength.

"The confocal microscope is illuminated using a Super continuum Light Source. At the global level, there are only a few Super continuum Source manufacturers as well as Confocal Microscope," said Kamal Dasgupta, director CGCRI.

"The laser technology in the microscope enables to focus on the object very tightly. It also has a pinhole, with which it filters out unwanted stray light," said Ramdas Pillai, MD of the Thiruvananthapuram-based Vinish Technologies.

The microscope is also cost effective. "At present, price of a confocal microscope is around Rs 4 crore, but we are selling it for Rs 1.5 crore. So it is very cost effective," Mr Pillai added.

K VijayRaghvan, secretary in the Departments of Biotechnology and Science & Technology said this was not only a "tremendous" experiment of working with the industry and also taking the indigenously made technology all over the world.

"In much of life sciences research, confocal microscope has become a common thing. With an exception of few, most of our laboratories are purchasing the machine from abroad. This will help in medical research, life sciences, material industry and other industries," Mr VijayRaghvan said.

Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Science & Technology, who unveiled the product said that with the development, "we have proved more to us and less to others" of India's scientific capabilities.

Cost-effective

While similar confocal microscopes cost about Rs. 4 crore to import, these will be priced between Rs. 1.25 crore and Rs. 1.5 crore, said Suresh Nair of Vinvish Technologies.

“It has taken us two years to develop this with a Rs. 2.5-crore loan from CSIR,” he added.

Dr. Dasgupta said the complex fibre optics was a result of a decade of work which cost around Rs. 15 crore. In fact, it was these specialised applications of fibre optics that had made his centre’s work profitable, he said.

Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh said, “This not only fulfils our goal of Make in India but it is also world class … A dream I cherish is to make the CSIR’s 38 labs into centres of excellence that would attract students from around the world. Scientists have also agreed to devote 12 hours every year to teaching in schools and colleges.”

Source:- Indigenous, Low-Cost Microscope Capable of 3D Images Developed
Indigenous microscope uses peacock feather technology - The Hindu

@Skull and Bones Your stuff #Made in India at a 1/3rd cost than that manufactures in Developed Countries!

 

[Skull and Bones]

Just the beginning, I believe we have the necessary resources to make even more high tech AFM, STM, MBE, various semiconductor processing and imaging tools at a far cheaper cost. Hope government encourages these developments with more funding.

 

[halfilhal]

What's with the stupidity of comparing prices? The overseas firms are selling at hefty profit. Sasta..sasta..sasta hi karte rehte hein hamesha. ISRO kicked its own butt when in the 1990s it started shouting sasti launching services. USA blocked cryogenic engines.

 

[Chanakya's_Chant]

What's with the stupidity of comparing prices? The overseas firms are selling at hefty profit. Sasta..sasta..sasta hi karte rehte hein hamesha. ISRO kicked its own butt when in the 1990s it started shouting sasti launching services. USA blocked cryogenic engines.

It is meant for domestic market in the first instance - First to be supplied to public sector Research Labs, Universities and other Technical Institutions then to be exported - That's what the CSIR's job is - to develop cost-effective technologies for the industry to flourish in India - Linking research to marketspace

And secondly - Never did ISRO advertised itself as a cost effective launch service in the 1990's and neither was the cryogenic engine deal scuttled because of this - it was on the pretext of the violations of MTCR's norms. ISRO first tied up with Ariane Space which in turn outsourced some of it's payload launches to ISRO finally commencing in 1999 with the first foreign satellites being launched by ISRO (Germany and South Korea).

 

[halfilhal]

That is the beauty of USA. Have various aaltu-jalaltu regulations and hide behind them to get things done. Do you think Agni-5 has cryogenic engine? How does MTCR fit here? The scientist Nambiyar was made bakra because he was also working on cryogenic project. All boils down to ISRO's plan on getting a chunk of market share through its sasti launching services.

 

[bhagat]

Not related to the topic..but interesting development

 

[Pride]

Just the beginning, I believe we have the necessary resources to make even more high tech AFM, STM, MBE, various semiconductor processing and imaging tools at a far cheaper cost. Hope government encourages these developments with more funding.

Don't know what are these acronym's mean (Being a software engr) but it sounded nice.

 

[Skull and Bones]

Don't know what are these acronym's mean (Being a software engr) but it sounded nice.

Atomic Force Microscope, Scanning Tunneling Microscope, Molecular Beam Epitaxy.

 

[gubbi]

Representational Photo ​

This pic is actually of a Olympus Confocal Microscope, that I actually use! Including the software shown on the monitors! The one that I use is actually more advanced where the stage is controlled through a joystick and not manual controls!

That being said, there is nothing innovative here. The 3D claims sound a bit over hyped. That is nothing but taking multiple images at particular focal points in the Z section and stitching them together, which I have also done. And given the advanced technologies that go into making these confocal microscopes, its no wonder that they are so expensive.
Cost cutting means compromising on some bits of critical and advanced technologies somewhere. Granted that for routine confocal imaging, this microscope might just work. But if one needs to take a peek into the minute environment of cells, follow organelles over a period of time or even study spatial location of a protein or organelle over a period of time, then it takes a lot more. Plus the kind of filters used will give you the flexibility or the range to expand use of probes to study multiple targets.
FYI, the setup I work on cost our dept around 400K USD!!

 

[Pride]

Atomic Force Microscope, Scanning Tunneling Microscope, Molecular Beam Epitaxy.

It helps...... only to google them.

 

[Chanakya's_Chant]

This pic is actually of a Olympus Confocal Microscope, that I actually use! Including the software shown on the monitors! The one that I use is actually more advanced where the stage is controlled through a joystick and not manual controls!

That being said, there is nothing innovative here. The 3D claims sound a bit over hyped. That is nothing but taking multiple images at particular focal points in the Z section and stitching them together, which I have also done. And given the advanced technologies that go into making these confocal microscopes, its no wonder that they are so expensive.
Cost cutting means compromising on some bits of critical and advanced technologies somewhere. Granted that for routine confocal imaging, this microscope might just work. But if one needs to take a peek into the minute environment of cells, follow organelles over a period of time or even study spatial location of a protein or organelle over a period of time, then it takes a lot more. Plus the kind of filters used will give you the flexibility or the range to expand use of probes to study multiple targets.
FYI, the setup I work on cost our dept around 400K USD!!

In this Microscope the optic fibre produces multiple wavelengths from the laser due to its surface which has very small holes. somewhat similar to the way a peacock’s feather scatters light - which in is projected on to the target object which allows us to see a three dimensional structure of the object. - CSIR has dubbed it as the "peacock feather technology" - how is it different from others or is it the same?

 

[gubbi]

In this Microscope the optic fibre produces multiple wavelengths from the laser due to its surface which has very small holes. somewhat similar to the way a peacock’s feather scatters light - which in is projected on to the target object which allows us to see a three dimensional structure of the object. - CSIR has dubbed it as the "peacock feather technology" - how is it different from others or is it the same?

There are multiple ways to diffract light into individual wavelengths - similar to the principle you use while using prisms. Some microscopes use micro grated plates or mirrors to diffract light (like a peacock's feather), some use optic fibers. The principle remains the same - diffract light into individual wavelengths, filter out the unwanted wavelengths and pick only those which are useful to excite the fluorescent probes.
Older microscopes used multiple laser sources to get the specific wavelengths. However with a white laser, one can get as many wavelengths as possible. Remember for confocal fluorscent microscopy, you are dealing with wavelengths mostly in the visible spectrum.

This does not create a 3D image.

For that, one needs to take pictures of a specimen through multiple focal planes, stitch them together and project on a screen to give a 3-D image.

For eg: Olympus Fluoview Confocal Microscopy

A typical stack of optical sections (often termed a z-series) through a sunflower pollen grain revealing internal variations in autofluorescence emission wavelengths is illustrated in Figure 6. Optical sections were gathered in 0.5-micrometer steps perpendicular to the z-axis (microscope optical axis) using a dual argon-ion (488 nanometer; green fluorescence) and green helium/neon (543 nanometer; red fluorescence) laser system. Pollen grains of from this species range between 20 and 40 micrometers in diameter and yield blurred images in widefield fluorescence microscopy (see Figure 1 (c)), which lack information about internal structural details. Although only 12 of the over 48 images collected through this series are presented in the figure, they represent individual focal planes separated by a distance of approximately 3 micrometers and provide a good indication of the internal grain structure.

In specimens more complex than a pollen grain, complex interconnected structural elements can be difficult to discern from a large series of optical sections sequentially acquired through the volume of a specimen with a laser scanning confocal microscope. However, once an adequate series of optical sections has been gathered, it can be further processed into a three-dimensional representation of the specimen using volume-rendering computational techniques. This approach is now in common use to help elucidate the numerous interrelationships between structure and function of cells and tissues in biological investigations. In order to ensure that adequate data is collected to produce a representative volume image, the optical sections should be recorded at the appropriate axial (z-step) intervals so that the actual depth of the specimen is reflected in the image.

Most of the software packages accompanying commercial confocal instruments are capable of generating composite and multi-dimensional views of optical section data acquired from z-series image stacks. The three-dimensional software packages can be employed to create either a single three-dimensional representation of the specimen (Figure 7) or a video (movie) sequence compiled from different views of the specimen volume.




Its just a cheaper version of any given confocal microscope. From the article, I cannot deduce what kind of compromises these people have done and what exactly are the capabilities of the microscope. Can it do live cell imaging of samples? Can if compile pictures to create movies? Does it have supporting equipment to support live cell imaging? What kind of software and mechanical controls does the system use? What kind of lenses, filters etc does it employ? What exactly is the laser source?
Lots of questions.