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Leigh,

I have had good success with:

Fluor-Ref fluorescence reference slides from Microscopy & Education
972-954-8011

---Some one from Leica mentioned fluorescent opaque slides that I could put
in each time and check that the values for intensity were the same each time
but I am struggling to find a supplier.---

--No commercial interest.

Cheers,

Jonathan M. Ekman
Imaging Technology Group
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
405 N. Mathews Avenue
Urbana, IL 61801 USA
Tel: 217-244-6292
http://www.itg.uiuc.edu/


-----Original Message-----
From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Leigh Silvester
Sent: Monday, May 08, 2006 8:31 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: standardisation/calibration

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I have a potential user who is carrying out a series experiment over several
weeks and would like the confocal results to be comparable.

Consequently I need to establish that the confocal system (Leica TCS SP2) is
responding the same for each batch of samples.
This does not need to be calibrated in the true sense of the word, but I do
need consistency.

I had considered setting it up on a convalaria sample each time but of
course there is no gurantee that I will be in the same Z plane each time.

Some one from Leica mentioned fluorescent opaque slides that I could put in
each time and check that the values for intensity were the same each time
but I am struggling to find a supplier.

There is the possibility of using the Molecular Probes "Fluorescent
Microsphere Standards", but is this what they are intended to be used for?
As far as I can ascertain these are primarily for checking alignments and
calibration in terms of distances. For me it is the calibration in terms of
ascertaining that the instrument settings for gain etc are the same each
time.
I know I can do an analysis and load the parameter settings from this on
subsequent occasions, but that does not give me a measure of how similar
conditions are. I guess I am looking for somwthing to act as a quality
control.

Any ideas?



Regards

Leigh Silvester
Division of Animal Physiology
University of Nottingham
School of Biosciences
Sutton Bonington Campus
Loughborough
Leicestershire
LE12 5RD, UK
tel: +44 (0)115 9515151 x18736
fax +44 (0)115 9516302
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