General Policies

The instruments of the facility represent a substantial investment and resource for the research community. To ensure that these resources are available to investigators at the optimum performance level and a minimum of down-time, the following policies have been established:

• To gain access the instruments, investigators must coordinate with one of the directors of the facility and be instructed by the staff.
• In the event of problems while operating the instruments, the facility staff has to be notified immediately. All occurring problems and failures must be recorded in the logbook.
• Instruments and chemicals must not be removed from the lab at any time.
• Computers in the microscope rooms may only be used for image acquiring and processing purposes. The computers operating the microscopes must not be used to browse the internet and write/read emails.
• Acquired digital images or data have to be transferred immediately to CD/hard disc drives or via online access. Computer hard drives may only be used for temporary storage, and old files will be deleted periodically without warning.
• Users who do not follow or abuse these policies and/or lack of respect towards the other users or the facility staff, will be excluded from use of the facility.