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Inventing a new microscope
At Calico, our scientists are not constrained by conventional wisdom.
In 2019, scientists Andrew York* and Alfred Millett-Sikking believed that there was an opportunity to move past the conventional confocal microscope, which had been used as the gold standard for decades. They knew that to move Calico’s science forward, there needed to be a new microscope that is simple to use, high-resolution, fast and gentle — one where scientists can look deep into an organism without damaging it.
They also wanted to ensure that anyone in the microscopy field could build it themselves. With unwavering support from Calico senior leaders they set out to build what resulted in the “high numerical aperture single-objective light-sheet microscope.”
They published their research on GitHub and continue to update their paper regularly.
*Andrew was a Calico employee at the time this article was published but has since left the company.
"The microscope we developed lets you look at living things in 3D, blazing fast, with very little photo damage. It’s way ahead of what you can buy off the shelf. Leadership was as geeked out about it as we were."
Alfred Millett-Sikking
Senior Staff Automation Engineer, Discovery Technologies
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