Exceptional Equipment – Technology Platforms
In order to respond to the challenges of society, the technological platforms of UMONS have, over the years, consolidated the expertise of its researchers and offered a fitting range of equipment and services.
Affiliated to the Health Institute, the Center for Microscopy and Molecular Imaging (CMMI) was founded in 2011 with funding from the European Union and the Région wallonne (ERDF funds). The CMMI fulfils the needs of the University of Mons and the Université Libre de Bruxelles to pool and complement their remarkable equipment and skills to offer the scientific community an integrated and efficient pre-clinical biomedical imaging platform.
Located in the Brussels South Charleroi Biopark, the CMMI is an inter-university platform which offers pre-clinical imaging services to researchers in industry and academia. It carries out high-end technical and methodological developments in this field, thanks to the scientific expertise of its team of academic managers. The CMMI’s objectives are to quantitatively and qualitatively increase the scientific productivity of its collaborators and to profile itself as a key partner in the setting up of projects on pre-clinical imaging.
The CMMI offers a broad range of modern equipment and methodologies ranging from electron microscopy to in vivo animal imaging.
The variety of technology and equipment available enables the imaging of biological samples from subcellular to the entire organisms.
The wide scope of expertise covers everything from sample preparation to quantitative image analysis and the interpretation of results in their biological context. Imaging training courses are also organised.
The CMMI is structured into four hubs, three of which correspond to imaging modalities, while the fourth is a transversal hub dedicated to image processing and analysis.
- in vivo: PET / SPECT / CT, autoradiography, MRI, optical imaging and in vivo photoacoustic imaging
- DIAPath (Digital Image Analysis in Pathology): histology, immunohistochemistry, digital pathology, associated image analysis
- Microscopy: scanning and transmission electron microscopy, automation and quantitative morphometry, holographic microscopy, fluorescence microscopy
- Image processing: image processing and analysis, sharing, visualisation, annotation
For more information, visit: www.cmmi.be
The BioProfiling platform was set up with the funding from the European Union and the Région wallonne as part of the 2014-2020 ERDF-ESF programme. This project, involving teams from UMONS and ULB, is part of the Wallonia Biomed portfolio, which focuses on four key areas: imaging, immunology, biological samples and biology, and has received 3.4 million euros of funding to acquire state-of-the-art equipment for identifying and quantifying biological markers.
The BioProfiling platform consists of two perfectly complementary technological platforms: a “Meta-Vision” platform dedicated to small molecules and an “MSQuanta” platform, shared with ULiège, which is dedicated to macromolecules (proteins). It is located at UMONS, which is recognised for its expertise in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectrometry, and which already has a large critical mass of researchers and instruments in this field.
It is open to all those involved in the biotechnology sector, including universities, research centres, hospitals and companies.
Equipment:
- Bruker AVANCETM 600 MHz NMR spectrometer
- High resolution mass spectrometers
- Exploratory quantitative analysis in DDA and DIA mode
- Relative quantitative profiling of over 2000 targets
- High sensitivity and high-speed mass spectrometers
- SRM/MRM/PRM analysis
- Simultaneous quantification (multiplex mode) of more than 50 targets
- High mass and spatial resolution mass spectrometers
- molecular imaging by mass spectrometry
For more information, contact Prof. Ruddy Wattiez – ruddy.wattiez@umons.ac.be