It’s Friday and it’s Valentine’s Day, so let’s take a break from the chaotic and busy work week to express our love for fluorescence. We started QUEL Imaging to help our customers make the best fluorescent imaging systems possible. We try to bring together the chemists developing fluorescent contrast agents, optical engineers designing the imaging systems and the surgeons who use these tools to enhance their abilities and improve surgical outcomes. So really, our team acts as nerdy match-makers, using fluorescent phantoms in place of Cupid’s arrow.
While we work hard to address customer needs, we also try to take time to geek-out and learn new skills. To help promote curiosity and innovation, we organize an “off-road” day each quarter. This is an opportunity for everyone at QUEL to work on a project idea that is not something they would normally be working on. Examples of past projects are:
We’ve had a few projects related to placing the stem of leaves or flowers in liquid solutions with various fluorophores. Kendra, our Application Engineer, recently tried this with a rose and our Q700-01 fluorophore. She placed a rose in a beaker with a 1uM solution of Q700-01 and water, then waited 5 hours while working on other off-road projects. During that time the rose was busy keeping hydrated, and transported the fluorophore to the flower pedals. Kendra used one of our custom imaging systems with 670 nm excitation and 785 nm longpass emission filter to snap a fluorescence image. The resulting image is monochrome, but we had fun applying different colormaps for the special occasion.
Let us know how we can help you with your optics project. We ❤️ this stuff! Reach out and contact us so we can schedule a chat.