Our Mission
Our mission is to facilitate preclinical and basic science research with the latest imaging technologies and optical tools. Our imaging specialists can serve in any part of the scientific imaging process, from sample preparation and image acquisition to data analysis, quantitation, and interpretation.
Our Start
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Microscope Facility provides light, fluorescence and electron microscopy services to over 400 users a year throughout Johns Hopkins University and the local mid-Atlantic region. As a fee-for-service core facility, we are partially supported by the Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences, a coalition of the Basic Science Departments, Department of Cell Biology, and the School of Medicine.
The Microscope Facility (aka Micfac) was established in 1989 by Douglas B. Murphy, Professor of Cell Biology and author of Fundamentals of Light Microscopy and Electronic Imaging. We began with one confocal microscope and one EM Technician, Michael Delannoy and with Doug as the facility director until 2006. Scot C. Kuo, Associate Professor in the Cell Biology and Biomedical Engineering, became the director. In 2019, Scot was one of 17 scientists in the U.S. to share in $17 million from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI).
From its beginning, and to the present with over 20 microscopes, our high-quality specimen preparation and images have facilitated numerous publications and grant proposals for our users.