Facilities

No imaging would be complete without comparing the imaging results to the "gold standard", which is histology. This laboratory facility is equipped with state of the art equipment for fixing and preparing our own tissue samples for histology, thus allowing us to perform direct comparison studies using histology as the gold standard of diagnostic medicine to confirm the features observed through our imaging modalities. 

Grind... Thud... Blam...

This laboratory is dedicated to the development of novel optical imaging technology and applications, consisting of state-of-the-art nonlinear optical microscopy systems that are used for a wide variety of experiments.

Here, our lab members are working to innovate our SLAM microscopy methods. 

This laboratory facility exploits the advantages of nonlinear optical techniques for imaging cells and tissue. Various lasers are used to generate ultrashort optical pulses, which are shaped to enhance imaging of specific molecular features. 

This room is nicknamed the "Doctor's office of the future" since it contains new and innovate technologies for primary care physicians. Our group is designing cutting edge optical techniques and systems with the ultimate goal of integrating them into existing medical procedures and tests. This room was designed with a patient care suite in mind. It has equipment that a typical physicians office would have, as well as our portable advanced imaging systems.

This is where our advanced OCT systems are developed and tested, as well as miniaturized into a cart. Several optics tables are housed here as well as a staging area for our portable systems.

"This is where eukaryotes die and prokaryotes thrive."

This lab contains the surgical facilities for the mice and the setup for bacteria and biofilm cultures!

This room is a miscellaneous space with an optics table and a completely equipped cell-culture hood and incubator.

"Where light is shunned"

Our sensitive fluorescence microscopy setups are developed and tested in this room to avoid ambient photo noise.

This Biosafety Level 2 (BL2) laboratory facility allows us to conduct studies on human and pre-clinical animal model specimens from our approved Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) protocols as well as conduct collaborative work with institutions such as Carle Foundation Hospital, Provena Medical Center, the NIH Tissue Banks, and the UIUC School of Veterinary Medicine. This wet-chemical laboratory is also used for fabricating novel targeted contrast and therapeutic agents for imaging. This laboratory is also used to isolate different subpopulations of extracellular vesicles. Attached to this laboratory space is a separate, isolated BL2 room used exclusively for cell culture work. This laboratory space is managed by a full-time Biological Research Manager that oversees all biological aspects of the group research, including cell culture training and efficient lab space/resource utilization.

The cell culture room is used for maintaining immortalized or primary mammalian tissue cell cultures under normoxic or hypoxic conditions. We have all the supplies needed to keep cells alive, support cell proliferation, differentiation or perturb normal cell functions and induce various types of cell death, if you're interested in apoptosis or necrosis.

Our 4th floor office space consists of an open space with graduate student seating, post-doc and staff offices, a computer area, and a conference table. Once on the 4th floor of Beckman, exit the elevators, walk South towards the tower room, and then turn left.