The VAST BioImagerTM (Vertebrate Automated Screening Technology – Union Biometrica) allows for imaging zebrafish larvae at different positions and angles in an automated way.

Sedated zebrafish larvae are introduced into a glass capillary mounted on the stage of a Leica DM6B microscope. Low resolution brightfield images can be recorded using the on-board VAST video camera. For higher resolution images in brightfield or fluorescence, the microscope objectives (4x air, 10x air, 20x water, 40x water) are used.

Larvae can be loaded in an automated way using the LP sampler or from a 50ml falcon tube. We also have a manual option to load larvae from a petri dish.

In fully automated mode, we combine the VAST software with the Leica LAS software allowing us to record images in brightfield and fluorescence at a certain position and rotation of each fish loaded from and dispensed back into a 96 well plate.