Tripping the light fantastic

Step into the ordinary looking, glass-fronted modern building just around the corner from the main entrance of the Science Museum and you could be in any workplace in the city. Ranks of wooden desks are populated by workers staring intently at their computer screens. Dotted around the desks are pictures of loved ones, a pair of once-used trainers, the full life and death cycle of a number of houseplants and, more incongruously, a red tricorn hat and yellow flower garland, perhaps from some vaguely remembered office party.

But the name above the main entrance – Sir Alexander Fleming Building – hints that this is no ordinary office. In fact, ground-breaking and potentially Nobel Prize-winning research takes place within its walls, because within this building, is the Facility for Imaging by Light Microscopy (FILM), offering a suite of 15 state-of-the-art microscopes to support breakthrough research across Imperial. The FILM team is composed of Professor Cristina Lo Celso, head of the facility (together with Professor Vania Braga), Dr Volodymyr Nechyporuk-Zloy, facility manager, and two microscopy specialists, Dr David Gaboriau and Dr Ana Ferreira Da Silva. Last year, FILM microscopes were used for more than 11,000 hours by 400 scientists and other researchers from 160 different groups around Imperial. And the scope of its work is breathtaking.

“We can be working across five or six different areas every day,” says Gaboriau, one of three microscopy specialists. “In the morning we might image malaria parasites, heart cells and cancer treatments, and then in the afternoon, take movies of live neurons and other cell types in brain sections and nanoparticles inside cells. It is incredible to be on the cutting edge of such world-leading science every day.”

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