Neurophotonics Centre:
at the interface between physics and neuroscience

The Neurophotonics Center is a unique facility at the national and international levels, created at the Centre de Recherche Université Laval Robert-Giffard (CRULRG). It received 15M$ of funding from CFI, Quebec Government and other partners to develop a multidisciplinary platform for advanced Biophotonics approaches dedicated toward the understanding of the brain, the development of diagnostics for brain disorders and phototherapy. It occupies 10,000 sq ft, with 6 clean rooms, 20 microscopy rooms, wet labs, cold room, tissue culture room, histology room, and a workshop for instrument design.

The Neurophotonics Center is located on one of the seven floors of lab space in the CRULRG (FRSQ-funded Center; www.crulrg.ulaval.ca).

The Neurophotonics Center has eight multi-photon and/or confocal imaging systems, 10 Ti:Sapphire lasers, oscillators as well as an amplified Ti:Sapphire laser for tissue ablation, widefield imaging and ultradeep imaging in tissue, two OPO lasers and an OPA laser for >1um wavelength applications and coherent Raman imaging. An additional 12 microscopes are equipped with complementary equipment for molecular imaging (AFM, SNOM, TIRF, FLIM and single molecule FRET), high speed live tissue imaging (fluorescence, infrared, interference contrast and high sensitivity ultrafast digital cameras) and in vivo imaging (micro-endoscopy, video-rate scanning laser systems).

Complementary equipment includes FACS cell sorting system for cell sample purification and an Electron Microscope for sample characterization. Additional clean rooms are made available to Industrial partners for demos, prototyping and beta testing with in-house tissue preparations.

Every year since 2007, the Neurophotonics Centre has been the host of the International ‘Frontiers in Neurophotonics Summer School’ on advanced imaging and photoactivation techniques. Graduate students and post-docs from the International scene are thus converging to beautiful Quebec city each spring for 10 exciting days combining hands-on experiments and lectures from experts in the field. For additional info on the summer school and to apply, please consult the ‘Summer School Highlights’ section on the right.