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Displaying posts in the category: Discussions

Microscope technology development and the search for a free lunch

Posted by , on 10 July 2020

I fortuitously stumbled into the field of microscopy around 2013, just in time to enjoy the hype of the 2014 Chemistry Nobel Prize for super-resolved fluorescence imaging. As a newcomer, I was quite surprised that this nearly 400-year-old field could still catch the attention of Stockholm. After all, wasn’t a microscope just some lenses to

My history with GFP (and other members of the family)

Posted by , on 7 July 2020

I first crossed paths with green fluorescent protein (GFP) while doing an internship in 1996 at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen. I was chemically labeling epidermal growth factor (EGF) with the fluorescent dyes Cy3 and Cy5 to study growth-factor signaling. Two post-docs were discussing the use of GFP as an alternative fluorescent tag and

Open microscopy across our journals

Posted by , on 3 July 2020

21-27 October marked International Open Access Week 2019. During this week many events were organised, stimulating discussion on open knowledge and connecting like-minded people and organisations that are all working towards greater accessibility of research. But of course important work in this area is being done all year round and we find ourselves in an

Career insight: bioimage analysis

Posted by , on 3 July 2020

I am a postdoctoral fellow based at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS), Melbourne, Australia. I am originally from Kerala, India and travelled to Australia for my postgraduate studies almost 13 years ago. I came to Melbourne because of all the high quality and affordable educational opportunities, and fell in love with it for

A welcome message from the Community Manager

Posted by , on 1 July 2020

Hello everyone and welcome to FocalPlane! My name is Christos and I joined the Journal of Cell Science team at The Company of Biologists as the FocalPlane Community Manager about 9 months ago to help build and manage a community website designed to bring experts and non-experts in microscopy together under one roof. My background,

Origin story: FocalPlane

Posted by , on 1 July 2020

On a sunny, summer’s day in July 2018, The Company of Biologists was hosting its annual lunch before a meeting with the Board of Directors and Editors-in-Chief. It’s a very friendly affair, and a great opportunity for the in-house staff to mingle with the Board and Editors – people they don’t see on a day-to-day

A 'lockdown post' from facility managers across the world

Posted by , on 1 July 2020

The year 2020 has been challenging so far. The current lockdown measures everywhere across the world brought about a change in how we work. But we have adapted and we have overcome this challenge in this new era of ‘working from home’. Here’s how people from imaging facilities in different parts of the world are

Advancing knowledge in mitochondria division using Dragonfly ultra-fast imaging

Sponsored by Andor, on 1 July 2020

Mitochondria are eukaryotic cellular organelles that are believed to have evolved from a prokaryotic symbiote inside a eukaryotic cell. This small organelle is of vital importance to the cells and organisms since it is the source of cellular energy. Besides their crucial role as an ATP generating unit of the cells, mitochondria have other vital

Lessons learned from an open-hardware project in microscopy: The mesoSPIM initiative

Posted by , on 1 July 2020

The mesoscale selective plane illumination microscope (mesoSPIM) is a highly versatile open-source light-sheet microscope for imaging large (cm-sized) cleared tissue samples. Using the documentation and software available via mesospim.org and on Github, interested labs can set up their own microscope.  Currently, ten mesoSPIM instruments are in operation around the globe and several more are under