An £8 million imaging unit has officially opened at Dundee University’s College of Life Sciences.
The Dundee Imaging Facility, in the Discovery Centre, is a technology resource that will be used for microscopy, taking and analysing pictures and the preparation of samples.
University chiefs yesterday hailed the impact the facility will have on research in physical, life and medical sciences.
It will be used to support individual research projects from a broad range of disciplines and help create workflows between existing technologies.
Professor Pete Downes, principal and vice- chancellor, cut a cake designed to look like a cell dividing at the launch event.
He said: “Officially the University of Dundee is the leading centre for biological science research in the UK.
“We are ahead of Oxford, Cambridge and all universities in Britain and for years we have been leading scientific work in Europe.
“Today we understand why. It is about great science in a fantastic centre located in a beautiful part of the world, but the real attraction is the infrastructure here to perform top-class research in a unique environment.”
Facility director Dr Sam Swift, who has driven the integration and management of the new imaging centre, said: “The university’s objectives are to develop transformational research areas, at the interface of the physical and engineering sciences with the life and medical sciences.
“These offer the biggest scientific challenges of our times.”