Maintenance and Service Agreement for Leica Stellaris 8 Confocal Microscopy System

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the nation's leading medical research agency and the primary Federal agency whose mission is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability, conducting, supporting and making medical discoveries that improve people's health and save lives. The mission of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Molecular Neurobiology Section is to identify the signaling pathways important for neural regeneration after injury. The lab currently uses mouse olfactory epithelium, which has robust regenerative capacity, as a model for neural regeneration. A primary approach to understanding mechanisms of neural regeneration is to observe, using a confocal microscope, the expression and localization of specific genes and proteins labeled with fluorescent tags in sections of animal tissue. The confocal microscope system described here allows the MNS to observe specific genes and proteins in the olfactory epithelium of mice before and after injury. In addition, it will allow for the evaluation of transgenic mice containing fluorescent reporters. The Leica Stellaris 8 Confocal Microscopy System provides state of the art imaging capabilities that are required for the investigations ongoing in the NINDS Molecular Neurobiology Section, Ngai Laboratory. The system requires routine preventative maintenance. This contract will ensure minimal downtime due to hardware and/or software malfunction. Additionally, the contract is required in order to maintain this research equipment in operable condition and prevent costly repairs.