The College of Science and Technology has been awarded its first Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Grant by the National Science Foundation for the purchase of a transmission electron microscope (TEM).

The transmission electron microscope will allow researchers to image very small nano-particles and cell structures. The instrument has a magnification capability of roughly one million, as compared to just 1,000 times for a standard optical microscope. The grant will provide approximately $450,000 in funding; Temple will match the award with approximately $200,000 to purchase the $650,000 TEM.

Chemistry Professor Dan Strongin is the principle investigator on the grant, which was submitted in January. He was joined in the grant proposal by Chemistry professors Eric Borguet and Wayland Bradford, Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Parsaoran Hutapea of the College of Engineering and Radiology Professor Linda Knight of the School of Medicine.

“It’s a very versatile microscope and a key piece of instrumentation for materials sciences and the study of nano-materials,” said Strongin. “There’s a whole range of nano-materials that you can look at with this instrument.”

Strongin said the new microscope would be useful to researchers in the medical and biology fields because it would allow them to examine cell structures in fine detail.

“Transmission electron microscopy is one of the best ways to image particles or cells,” he said. “You can determine what the particle or cell looks like, its shape and size, its morphology and how its morphology changes under specific environmental conditions.”

Currently, Strongin and his colleagues pay rental fees to use transmission electron microscopes at other area universities.

He said the Temple’s grant proposal was strengthened by the number of departments, schools and colleges that demonstrated a need for the instrument.

“I think the success of the proposal was largely due to the number of listed users who are NSF-funded,” said Strongin.

The TEM is expected to be installed at Temple sometime next spring. CST is currently seeking funding for a common instrumentation facility to support materials research.