History of the Sanderson Center for Optical Experimentation

The Sanderson Center for Optical Experimentation (SCOPE) is the light microscopy core facility at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School named in honor of Dr. Michael J. Sanderson, PhD.

Michael J. Sanderson, PhD. joined the UMass Chan Medical School Department of Physiology in 1994. Dr. Sanderson had passion and expertise in the power of microscopy for answering a vast array of scientific questions and was always happy to collaborate. He was well known for building custom high-performance imaging systems for many applications including confocal microscopy, 2-photo microscopy, high-speed digital phase-contrast or DIC microscopy. Using his custom-built systems, his lab was able to observe physiological movements of the cilia in airway tissue to evaluate the beat frequency and pattern under different conditions and observe the effects of Ca²⁺ signaling and oscillations in a variety of tissue types.

Through a merger between the Department of Physiology and the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, the Department Microbiology and Physiological Systems (MaPS) was created in 2010 and in support of this new group the university committed to investing in an imaging core facility. Dr. Allan Jacobson, PhD., the chair of the newly formed MaPS department, saw that Michael Sanderson, PhD. was passionate about teaching the ins and outs of microscope technology through his microscopy courses for the graduate students at UMass Chan and in the hallways to his colleagues about imaging experimental design. He was the obvious candidate to create and direct the new imaging core facility. Dr. Sanderson had a clear vision and designed the space for the facility down to the smallest details, including building several of the imaging systems by hand himself. Unfortunately, Michael J. Sanderson, PhD. passed away suddenly in 2016 and the facility needed a new director to carry on his legacy.

Dr. Christina Baer, PhD was appointed as director of SCOPE by Dr. Allen Jacobson, (MaPS) and Dr. Philip Zamore (RNA Therapeutics Institute (RTI)) in 2017 and made the imaging facility into a university-wide light microscopy core in 2018 named in Sanderson’s honor. This expanded the availability of educational resources, cutting-edge equipment, and quantitative analysis techniques to the entire UMass Chan community – and beyond.

Dr. Christina Baer, Dr. Dorothy Schafer and the industry partner Vigil Neuroscience were awarded a Massachusetts Life Sciences (MLSC) grant through their Bits to Bytes program in 2020 which brought cutting-edge spatial transcriptomics to SCOPE, propelling the technology available UMass Chan forward. After the successful launch of this new technology, the SCOPE was able to bring 2 more spatial transcriptomics systems to UMass Chan with support from 11 UMass Chan departments, 2 individual researchers, and the UMass Chan Research Core Administration (RCA). In 2022, MLSC funded a Research Infrastructure award proposed by Dr. Kate Fitzgerald, PhD supporting nanoscale imaging technology to advance virology research, bringing STED super resolution to the SCOPE BSL2 lab facility and live-cell imaging, cell metabolism analyzer, and surface plasmon resonance instrumentation to the BSL3 facility. In 2023, Dr. Beth McCormick, PhD, was appointed as the chair of the Microbiology Department, formerly MaPS, and provided the SCOPE with invaluable sample preparation equipment, which allows SCOPE to offer researchers with expert support from start to finish on their imaging experiments. Also in 2023, SCOPE was named a Leica Microsystems Partner in Microscopy. In 2024, the SCOPE was named a Vizgen Certified Service Provider.  It is no small feat for the SCOPE facility to offer the latest technology within the fast-paced growth in the field of light microscopy, but with the collaborative efforts of Director Christina Baer, PhD and many members of the UMass Chan Faculty as well as industry partners, SCOPE has been able to provide state-of-the-art equipment that is advancing scientific discovery at the University.

Since Dr. Christina Baer was appointed as director, SCOPE has grown from a collection of 8 instruments with 28 users to a vibrant research center encompassing 17 instruments, 3 imaging services, and 2 additional scientific support staff members that are utilized by 165 researchers from 20 UMass Chan departments, 4 external institutions, and 8 biotechnology companies as of 2022 – and this number continues to grow. Dr. Baer and her staff bring extensive experience with wide-field, confocal, multi-photon, super resolution, spatial biology imaging techniques and image analysis pipelines to help researchers of all levels explore the science behind human disease. The mission of SCOPE is focused on microscope education and innovation of imaging techniques and technology – values Dr. Christina Baer, PhD and Dr. Michael J. Sanderson, PhD both exemplify.

In alignment with the education mission, SCOPE is the host and organizer of Imaging Week/Showcase, is training 50-65 new researchers as users of the facility each year and presents on a variety of imaging technologies at conferences and symposiums. Dr. Christina Baer is a co-founding partner of ScienceLive and SCOPE proudly supports that educational mission as well. The Sanderson Center for Optical Experimentation is constantly growing, learning and teaching more researchers to love microscopes.