Complementary data acquired with different microscopy techniques provide a basis for establishing a more comprehensive understanding of health and disease at a cellular level, particularly when data acquired with different methodologies can be correlated in both time and space. In this Communication, a brief description of a novel instrument capable of simultaneously performing confocal optical and magnetic resonance microscopy is presented, and the first combined images of live Xenopus laevis oocytes are shown. Also, the potential benefits of combined microscopy are discussed, and it is shown that the a priori knowledge of the high-resolution optical images can be used to enhance the boundary resolution and contrast of the MR images.

New methods in biological research and increasingly complex collaborations are demanding a more distributed approach to scientific imaging and data acquisition. This modus operandi is demanding access to everything from anywhere: data acquisition machines are,required to be operated remotely and experimental data is required to be accessible from everywhere. This paper describes the work, done to address some of these issues by detailing a mechanism for remote control of existing microscopes, and a central data repository system, accessible from all computers via a platform independent image browsing application.