The Leduc Bioimaging Facility is named after Elizabeth H. Leduc, a biologist who greatly advanced our understanding of cellular structure and function using electron microscopy. Elizabeth Leduc came to Brown University in 1945 as an assistant. She became an assistant professor in 1953, associate professor in 1957, and in 1964, she bacame the first woman full professor in a teaching position. In 1973 she was named Dean of the Division of Biological and Medical Sciences and Frank L. Day Professor of Biology.
The facility was established in Partridge Hall with the purchase of a transmission electron microscope in 1978 and a scanning electron microscope in 1989. The facility subsequently moved to the BioMed Center and a confocal microscope was purchased in 1995. The facility has been significantly upgraded and expanded in recent years: the electron microscopes were upgraded for digital imaging, and additional imaging systems were purchased, including three fluorescence microscopes and two confocal laser scanning microscopes. The facility currently offers training and equipment at two locations: in Sidney Frank Hall for Life Sciences and the Laboratories for Molecular Medicine. The facility maintains eight main imaging systems and serves more than 200 users. Microscope use in the facility has increased 6-fold between 2001 and 2007.
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