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.

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Recent posts

Workshop report: York Confocal Microscopy course

Posted by Yelena Ivanova, on 3 February 2026

During the four-day Confocal Microscopy 2025 course at the University of York, I gained a better understanding of both the fundamentals of microscopy and more advanced techniques. The daily schedule consisted of the introduction of the relevant topics in the morning, followed by several hands-on practical sessions. In these, we were split into small groups

2026 Boston Bioimage Analysis Course (BoBiAC)

Posted by Federico Gasparoli, on 3 February 2026

📣 After a successful 2025 edition, we’re excited to share we are now accepting applications for the 💻 2026 Boston Bioimage Analysis Course (BoBiAC)📊! Join us at Harvard Medical School this July for a 6-day intensive hands-on course where you will learn both Python and bioimage analysis, starting from the basics and applying each concept directly to fluorescence microscopy images. If you answered yes

BINA STED User Group, February 12, 12 PM ET

Posted by Ethan A. Perets, on 2 February 2026

The next BioImaging North America and Canada BioImaging STED user group (henceforth the “Nanoscopy User Group”, see note below) will take place via Zoom on February 12 at 12 PM ET/11 AM CT/9 AM PT. Christina Pyrgaki (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) will deliver the presentation “MINFLUX Microscopy in a Core Facility: Early Experience and Considerations”. Thomas Stroh (McGill University)

Imaging with… Unidad de Microscopía, Universidad Mayor, Chile

Posted by FocalPlane, on 2 February 2026

In our ‘Imaging with…’ blog post, we meet the team at Unidad de Microscopía Avanzada, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Featured image with Denise Scuffi

Posted by FocalPlane, on 30 January 2026

Our featured image, acquired by Denise Scuffi, shows stomata – small pores surrounded by a pair of specialised cells known as guard cells – from Arabidopsis thaliana expressing the fluorescent biosensor roGFP2-Orp1 in the cytosol, which enables in vivo monitoring of intracellular H₂O₂ dynamics.

JCS snapshot: Tracking coordinated cellular dynamics in time-lapse microscopy with ARCOS.px

Posted by FocalPlane, on 29 January 2026

In our latest JCS snapshot we hear from Maciej Dobrzyński, who, together with Benjamin Grädel and colleagues, developed ARCOS.px, a software tool to automatically identify and track coordinated dynamic cellular events in time-lapse microscopy movies.

Seeing Chromatin Scaling with Cell Size, from Interphase to Mitosis

Posted by Manuel Mendoza, on 26 January 2026

Melike Lakadamyali, Jérôme Solon and Manuel MendozaAs cells divide during development, their size evolves dramatically while DNA content remains constant. This raises a fundamental question: does chromosome compaction adjust to these size changes so that genomes are still segregated faithfully? This question has been with us for a long time. More than a decade ago,

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