General informations

The access to the Orion technological core and its resources is available for members of the CIRB, as well as for external users. Booking resources is mandatory, and it can be done after registration on the OpenIRIS website.

We provide support to our users throughout the entire process, from experimental design and image acquisition to image analysis. Feel free to contact us at orion.cirb@college-de-france.fr if you have questions about the best system for your project, the most suitable fluorophores, the optimal image analysis strategy, etc. 

If you encounter technical difficulties during one of your experiments, do not hesitate to call the imaging facility hotline at 0144271599. The call will be automatically transferred to the cellphone of one of the engineers at the facility, and you will receive assistance to resolve the issue whenever possible.

Charter of use

The access and use of the Orion technological core is governed by rules defined in the following charter of use. Acceptance of the charter during OpenIRIS registration is mandatory to gain access to the technological core.

This charter relates to the use of the equipment belonging to the Orion technological core, starting on 01/01/2018.

  1. People, schedule, contact and appointments

Members of the facility staff:

– Tristan Piolot, manager of the facility. Mail: tristan.piolot@college-de-france.fr, phone: 0144271596.

– Héloïse Monnet, image treatment and analysis. Mail: heloise.monnet@college-de-france.fr, phone: 0144271542.

– Julien Dumont, image acquisition. Mail: julien.dumont@college-de-france.fr, phone: 0144271028.

-Estelle Anceaume, image acquisition & histology. Mail: estelle.anceaume@college-de-france.fr, phone: 0144271506.

– Magali Fradet, cytometry. Mail: magalie.fradet@college-de-france.fr, phone: 0144271564.

The facility is open from Monday to Friday, from 9:00 to 17:30. Equipment is still accessible outside these time slots.

Before initiating any new project, we invite you to contact us by mail at orion.cirb@college-de-france.fr to discuss the acquisition and analysis strategy for the project (choice of the system, of the fluorophores, etc.). If necessary, we will schedule an appointment.

In the event of technical difficulties during an acquisition on a system, you can contact us by phone at 0144271599. But for any other questions, please contact us by email to enable us to respond better to all user requests.

  1. Training and access to the facility equipment

Access to the facility equipment requires specific training for each piece of equipment. One of the facility members can provide this training. Only facility members are authorized to assess a user autonomy.

Training requests are submitted online through the OpenIRIS website.

In order to be trained, an intern or staff working at the college de France must be able to justify a contract longer than two months.

For administrative reasons, users from the college de France must have a college-de-france mail address to be able to access the training and equipment of the facility.

For external users of the college de france, an address recognized by the federation of identity Renater is required (cnrs, universities…).

Within 7 days following the request made via openIris, a training date will be proposed to the applicant. Training requests are processed in order of arrival, depending on the availability of the staff of the platform, systems and the constraints of grouping requests.

  1. System booking, cancellation of sessions

It is mandatory to book an instrument in order to use it. Reservations of microscopes are made online at openIris (http://iris.science-it.ch/)

It is forbidden to book a slot on a system for somebody else.

Systems are bookable within a period of two weeks prior to the slot of interest.

Bookings on upright SP5 and inverted SP5 confocal microscopes are limited to 3 hours per day and 9 hours per week. These rules do not apply during off-peak hours that extend from 6: 00 to 8: 00 and on Saturday and Sunday.

When a booking is made, openIris gives you 3 minutes to modify or cancel it.

It is possible to remove a booking 24 hours before it begins. Beyond this limit, you can cancel your session and the slot on this equipment becomes vacant again. In this case, the session will be charged to the group of the user having cancelled his booking at a rate of 50% less than the fare, unless another user takes the free slot.

An exceptionnal slot removal request can be made by mail to the address: pfmicroscopie.CIRB@College-de-France.fr . The reasons for this removal request must be justified.

You have the option to subscribe to a mailing list for each system via openIris in order to be informed of the cancellations and technical problems on the system.

If you end your session earlier than scheduled, consider changing your session end time under openIris in order to allow another user to use the end of your slot.

  1. Rates and billing rules

The rates of the platform are:

Hourly rates Video-Microscope / Stereoinvestigator / upright widefield/Axiozoom / UltraMicroscope / AFM Confocal scanning SpinningDisk LMD-7000 micdissector Analysis WS1-6 stations Internal 5 17 15 30 5 External EPST 10 34 30 60 10 External private 30 102 90 180 30

On off-peak hours that extend from 18H to 8 h and Saturday and Sunday, the rates are reduced by 50%.

External users must prepay the hours to use by generating a purchase order for a minimum amount of 300 euros.

  1. Use of the microscopes

Users ensure cleanliness and the proper functioning of the microscopes. They are required to clean every immersion objective that they could have used, and to ensure no leakage of their samples.

The port of glove is strictly forbidden. Samples containing pathogens or toxic products must be subject to a specific require to the platform staff. A particular protocol may be implemented for these experiments (boxes sealed etc.)

At the end of the day, check that there is a user after you. If there is no reservation planned within the hour, turn off the system. From 17:30, if the next user is not present at the end of your session, contact him to check if he comes. If you are unable to reach him, turn off the fluorescent lamp and lasers as a preventive measure, in order to not let them switch on for the night.

If you end your session earlier than expected, consider changing your session under openIris end time in order to allow another user to use the end of your slot. If used, the remaining session will billed to the new user, thus decrease the amount of the invoice associated with your session. If no one is using the released slot, 50% of its remaining will be in charge of your team.

Samples brought by users must not be left near microscopes after observation. Small material handling (pipettes, tips etc) must not be left behind. The cleaning of the work area is the responsibility of each user (cleaning of objectives, turntables slide…).

  1. Problems encountered

In case of difficulty encounter on a system, it is imperative to inform the platform by email: pfmicroscopie.cirb@college-de-france.fr or by creating an incident under “issue” openIris report

  1. Data management

The acquired data should be retrieved at the end of the session and should not remain on the hard drive of the acquisition system.

Each user is responsible for the management of its images (backup, erasing the hard disks…).

On acquisitions stations and analysis stations, the data is automatically erased every 15 days. However, if needed, when the disks of the station are saturated, data older than 24 hours can be erased by the platform staff.

To recover your data, you can use the server to transfer DATA-S or borrow one of the two hard disks available on the platform.

-Transfer DATA-S server, managed by the DSI allows a transitional transfer of data. The data saved on DATA-S are deleted automatically after 48H. For long-term data storage, you can contact the DSI to get an account on the storage server.

-The hard disks are loaned for a period of a few hours to ensure the transfer of your images. It is imperative to complete the workbook of borrowing and bring them back quickly

For experiments with a generated volume greater than 1 TB, it is strongly recommended to come with a hard drive and save the data directly on this drive when acquiring.

  1. Quotes from workers of the platform for imaging of the CIRB-CDF in publications

Users must indicate that they used equipment of the imaging platform of the CIRB-CDF platform in their publications. They also cite the staff on the platform in the acknowledgements (in typical use of the equipment) and/or as co-author when their participation warrants.

By electronically accepting this Charter, I acknowledge having read and undertake to respect it.

I also certify that none of the products that I’m taking on the platform contains pathogens or toxic products.