The brightfield, fluorescence and polarization microscope slide scanner will be part of the Biocenter Oulu Transgenic and Tissue Phenotyping core facility at the University of Oulu and is to be installed in the laboratory at the Biocenter Oulu premises at the Kontinkangas campus. Biocenter Oulu core facilities have an open access user policy, and the instrument will be operated by individual customers as self-service. Therefore, instrumentation and software should be easy to use and meet the requirements of users from different research areas. The instrument will be used primarily for life science imaging.

The microscope slide scanner provides a functional system for scanning contrasted samples on microscope slides and viewing the acquired images. The scanner is specifically designed for research and not for clinical purposes. The instrument holds brightfield, phase contrast or comparable contrast enhancing technique, dark field, HiLo laser speckle-based structured illumination optical sectioning for fluorescence, and polarization modes for digitalizing whole microscope slides and has an option for capturing Z-stacks. A minimum of six fluorescence channels allows multiplexing, and separate high resolution RGB color and monochrome cameras for brightfield and fluorescence imaging, respectively. A relatively large range optical zooming capability is achieved with air objectives without the requirement of immersion objectives. Slides are loaded in the scanner within multi-slide trays that can be filled manually. Multiple trays can be imaged in a single run. There are trays for different sized microscope slides available. There are no specific requirements for slide specifications, like trademark, but any microscope slide with a correct size, shape and thickness is compatible. The user interface is self-explanatory and easy to use. The scanner generates a low-resolution preview, automatically detects the samples, and sets a focus map. It is possible to freely navigate in a live mode to any location on the slide. Automated settings/functions can also be adjusted manually. Individualized settings can be saved to generate scanning profiles for later use. The set-up is upgradeable with additional accessories and software components. A free offline software capable of opening and modifying the images after acquisition is downloadable on the end-users’ workstations. The image format is directly, without a need for any conversion, compatible with the Visiopharm image analysis software.

The procurement is co-funded by the Research Council of Finland, FIRI 2023: roadmap research infrastructures 2021–2024 and international memberships.