I am a newbie to this forum and stumbled upon by chance.
I am a pathologist looking for all the following features in a single microscope or scanner (bright filed, fluorescence including FISH and planning for multiplex fluorescence for spatial biology in the future and polarization).
I have an existing Nikon Eclipse Ci with 6 filter cubes with bright field and polarizer.
I am in a confusion whether to upgrade this because:
If I do, I will compromise the number of filter cube slots multiplex fluorescence (future spatial biology applications) as there are only 6.
If a buy a separate microscope, the ZEISS Axioimager Z2 OEM that can accomodate10 position motorized reflector turret would be extremely costly.
If I buy a fluorescence scanner, I am not sure about the quality of fluorescence and if FISH and polarization are possible as I don’t have any prior experience.
I am also a pathologist and I have developed (and am continuing to develop) a 3D print-based open source multimodality research microscopy system called PUMA. The current system is an upright design and can do all the modalities you want but it is not (yet) fully motorised. However, I am currently working to fix that so if you are interested then keep an eye on my GitHub and YouTube channels. Here are some links:
If 3D printing is not your ‘thing’ then there is also the excellent metal-built ‘OpenFrame’ modular open source microscopy system which you may want to look into here:
If you are not into precision metalwork DIY then you can buy OpenFrame components from a company (I will not advertise here but the above publication will point you to them) and build your custom motorised system around that.