FocalPlane - Where biology meets microscopy

Welcome to FocalPlane

FocalPlane is a community site for anyone who uses microscopy in their research. It is a place where you can interact with a global community of imaging scientists, engineers, chemists, and bioimage analysts.

FocalPlane is your site and once registered, you are free to share a blog post, add an image to our gallery, post a job advert or put up an event listing.

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Recent posts

STED Microscopy User Group, April 10, 12pm EDT

Posted by Ethan A. Perets, on 29 March 2025

The next BioImaging North America and Canada BioImaging STED user group will take place via Zoom on April 10 at 12 pm EST. Mathias Delhaye and Jeffrey LeDue will jointly deliver the presentation, “Expanding Insights: Magnified Analysis of the Proteome Across Imaging Platforms”, followed by Q&A. We hope you will join us! This user group is targeted at

Announcing the winners of the Node–FocalPlane image competition.

Posted by FocalPlane, on 27 March 2025

We are delighted to announce the winners of the Node–FocalPlane image competition, which we presented at the Biologists @ 100 conference, as well as on the Node and FocalPlane. In first place is ‘Cell-estial bloom’ from Özge Özgüç. Özge’s image is a colony of live hiPSCs, with fluorescently labelled Lamin B delineating the nuclear lamina

Illuminating Cancer Metabolism: Unveiling Mitochondrial Secrets Through Fluorescence Microscopy

Posted by SANGRAM POLLEY, on 23 March 2025

Understanding cancer metabolism is central to developing effective therapies, and a chief player in this complex scenario is mitochondrial metabolism. The studies of Monika Gooz and Eduardo N. Maldonado have shed light on how fluorescence microscopy is employed to investigate mitochondrial activity in cancer cells, thus posing avenues into the metabolic vulnerabilities that could be

Microscopy preprints – new tools and techniques in imaging

Posted by FocalPlane, on 21 March 2025

Here is a curated selection of preprints posted recently on new tools and techniques in imaging. Let us know if we are missing any recent preprints that are on your reading list!

Biologists @ 100 video guide

Posted by FocalPlane, on 17 March 2025

It’s only one week to go until the start of the Biologists @ 100 conference and we’re looking forward to welcoming you in Liverpool. Together with our sister community sites, the Node and preLights, we’ve made a recording to give you a flavour of what to expect during the conference.

Featured image with Omkar Joshi

Posted by FocalPlane, on 14 March 2025

Our featured image, acquired by Omkar Joshi, showcases a U2OS cell immunostained for paxillin (green), TOMM20 (mitochondria, white), and F-actin (labelled using SiR-Actin, magenta), with DAPI (yellow) marking the nucleus.

Vote for your favourite image

Posted by FocalPlane, on 11 March 2025

We are delighted to unveil the shortlisted images in the Node–FocalPlane image competition. Thanks to everyone that entered, we received so many fantastic images and congratulations to all the finalists. You can vote for your favourite image using the poll at the bottom of the page.

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