TelePresence confocal laser scanning microscopy

The advent of the Internet has allowed the development of remote access cap abilities to a growing variety and number of microscopy systems. To date, t he confocal microscope has not been included among these systems. At the Ca lifornia State University (CSU) Confocal Microscopy Core Facility, we have established a remote access confocal laser scanning microscope facility tha t allows users with virtually any type of computer platform to connect to o ur system. Our Leica TCS NT confocal system is accessible to any authorized user via the Internet by using a free software program called VNC (Virtual Network Computing). Once connectivity is established, remote users are abl e to control virtually all the functions to conduct real-time image analysi s and quantitative assessments of their specimen. They can also move the mo torized stage to view different regions of their specimen by using a softwa re program associated with the stage. At the end of the session, all riles generated during the session can be downloaded to the user's computer from a link on the CSU confocal website. A number of safeguard features have bee n developed to ensure security and privacy of data acquired during a remote session.