UV microspot irradiator at Columbia University

The Radiological Research Accelerator Facility at Columbia University has recently added a UV microspot irradiator to a microbeam irradiation platform. This UV microspot irradiator applies multiphoton excitation at the focal point of an incident laser as the source for cell damage, and with this approach, a single cell within a 3D sample can be targeted and exposed to damaging UV. The UV microspot’s ability to impart cellular damage within 3D is an advantage over all other microbeam techniques, which instead impart damage to numerous cells along microbeam tracks. This short communication is an overview, and a description of the UV microspot including the following applications and demonstrations of selective damage to live single cell targets: DNA damage foci formation, patterned irradiation, photoactivation, targeting of mitochondria, and targeting of individual cardiomyocytes in a live zebrafish embryo.