Olympus America Inc. has been named the North American distributor of the CV1000 Cell Voyager, an all-in-one, medium- to high-throughput live cell imaging system from Yokogawa Electric Corporation. The compact, user-friendly, spinning-disk laser confocal microscope is designed for long-term time-lapse imaging.

The microscope imaging system provides the same image quality of a traditional confocal system, but without the need for a highly trained imaging expert or a darkroom. The CV1000 is optimized for researchers working in biology applications and for those whose work requires medium- to high-throughput imaging, using 96- or 384-well plates. Single slides and dishes, along with some incubator chamber, also can be accommodated.

The spinning-disk system offers lower levels of photobleaching and a hybrid of laser-based and contrast-based autofocus, which makes it suitable for multipoint time-lapse studies that require imaging over hours or days. With the benchtop system's straightforward software, users quickly learn to generate bright, high-quality images. Multipoint time-lapse studies are stable, thanks to highly accurate position reproducibility and precise environmental controls. Users can select from two pinhole sizes to optimize resolution for both low and high magnifications. The system can accommodate any of six Olympus dry or oil-immersion objectives ranging from 10X to 100X, as well as the 30X and 60X silicone objectives.