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.

Create an account to share your story or to stay up-to-date with the latest news.

Join or access here

Recent posts

Microscopy preprints: bioimage analysis

Posted by FocalPlane, on 16 October 2026

Here is a curated selection of preprints published or updated recently. In this post we focus specifically on bioimage analysis and data management.

UK-BIAS is here!

Posted by Stefania Marcotti, on 16 October 2026

Drowning in image data? Think there might be a better way to analyse it, but not sure where to start? 🆘 UK-BIAS to the rescue! 🔬 We’re the first dedicated bioimage analysis service within the UK Node of Euro-BioImaging, bringing together specialists from ten UK institutions. We cover the full experimental life cycle, from an

What’s the story: Scientific storytelling with The Company of Biologists community sites

Posted by FocalPlane, on 16 October 2026

Are you looking to improve your presentation skills, make your written work more compelling or would like to learn how to use graphics to tell the story of your research? Join us at our free workshop on scientific storytelling on 10 November from 13:00 – 17:00 GMT.

CCP-volumeEM Show & Tell Series – Data stewardship and biological imaging data management: a summary of FAIR data life cycle

Posted by Helen Spiers, on 15 October 2026

We would like to invite you to the next webinar in our CCP-volumeEM Show & Tell Series – a 60-minute online talk with Dr Aybuke Kupcu Yoldas (EMBL-EBI).

Update on the open letter to Nikon Small World in Motion, and join today’s webinar on AI and the future of imaging

Posted by pleasantine, on 14 October 2026

A little over a week ago, we asked the FocalPlane community to consider signing an open letter to Nikon Small World in Motion about this year’s first-place video. The video was captioned as abnormal beating of airway cilia from a child with primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD), and its submitter later acknowledged that parts had been

Live event – Nikon Small World and AI: Where Should Scientific Imaging Draw the Line?

Posted by FocalPlane, on 13 October 2026

In this quick-fire webinar, Peter O’Toole will be joined by Florian Jug, Pleasantine Mill and Simon Cleary, to explore questions around the use of AI, drawing on perspectives from microscopy, cilia biology, and AI image analysis.

Featured image with Shang-Wu Shih

Posted by FocalPlane, on 9 October 2026

Our featured image, acquired by Shang-Wu Shih, shows ionocytes distributed along the gill filaments of marine medaka. These specialized epithelial cells are responsible for maintaining systemic ion and acid–base homeostasis. Gill tissues were fixed and immunostained for Na⁺/K⁺-ATPase (NKA, red), a marker of ionocytes, and actin (green/cyan), which outlines the tissue architecture. Images were acquired

View more posts …