The institute said that the microscope was procured with the help of funding granted under a project that is part of the European Fund for Regional Development and that it was the first such microscope in Croatia.
It will be used by the IRB laboratory headed by Professor Iva Tolić.
Stimulated emission depletion microscopy is one of the techniques that make up super-resolution microscopy. It is a method used to bypass the diffraction limit of light microscopy in studying the smallest structures of matter. German physicist Stefan W. Hell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014 for its development.
The application of STED technologies will help IRB researchers to conduct, in cooperation with physicists at the Zagreb Faculty of Science, the research of signalling proteins and live human tumour cells following the application of potential cancer treatment drugs.