Living T cell in suspension acquired with a Leica TCS SP8 STED 3X. 3D reconstruction of confocal and STED stacks clearly shows the gain in resolution by STED. Scale bar: 1 µm. Courtesy of Marco Fritsche, Mathias Clausen, and Christian Eggeling, MRC Human Immunology Unit, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, UK.
Goettingen / Mannheim, Germany. Leica Microsystems, developer and manufacturer of microscopes and scientific instruments for analysis of micro- and nanostructures, has co-exclusively licensed to Abberior Instruments, developer and manufacturer of high resolution STED and RESOLFT research microscopes, IP rights regarding its light microscopy product portfolio. In return, Abberior Instruments will also co-exclusively license IP rights to Leica Microsystems. The licensing agreement is only applicable for the Licensor and Licensee.
With this licensing agreement, Leica Microsystems continues the collaboration with Nobel Prize winner Professor Stefan Hell, the inventor of STED microscopy. Prof. Hell is a founding member and partner of Abberior Instruments, a spin-off of the Max Planck Institute. He acted as a key advisor to Leica Microsystems for the initial commercialization of Leica STED microscopy.
The licensed IP rights pertain to different methods and devices to enhance the performance of high resolution light microscopy, known as nanoscopy. The agreement makes it possible for both firms to offer the innovative, state-of-the-art technologies for life science/biomedical research, biotechnology, and medicine.
Primary hippocampal neurons (22 days in vitro) show a characteristic beta-II spectrin periodicity of approx. 190 nm along distal axons, which can only be uncovered with superior STED resolution. The specimen was labelled with Abberior STAR635P and imaged with the Abberior Instruments easy3D STED-Microscope (imaged by Elisa D’Este).