Interviews - FocalPlane

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Interview with Dr Benjamin Compans: From Academia to Industry in Super-Resolution Microscopy

Posted by Sally Horton, on 7 May 2025

In this interview, I sat down with Dr Benjamin Compans, A field Application Scientist at Abbelight (pictured above). Microscopy is more than just a tool; it’s a window into the intricate and often unseen world of biological structures. For many researchers, their first encounter with a microscope can be a defining moment in their scientific

An interview with Lina El Hajji

Posted by FocalPlane, on 9 January 2025

Lina was one of the three-minute talk presenters at our science communication event, SciCommConnect. At the event, which we co-hosted with the Node and preLights, we were treated to fantastic talks on a range of topics. Lina has kindly allowed us to share her presentation and we caught up with Lina to learn more about

Our 2024 FocalPlane correspondents - Daniel Doucet, Subhajit Dutta and Greg Redpath

Posted by FocalPlane, on 19 December 2024

We had the pleasure of working with Daniel, Subhajit and Greg as our FocalPlane correspondents in 2024. You can read some of their posts here and look out for a few more coming out in 2025. As the year comes to a close, we took the opportunity to hear from them about their research and

VolumeEM: An Interview with Kedar Narayan

Posted by Daniel Doucet, on 14 December 2024

I had the pleasure of sitting down with recent awardee of the Alan Agar Royal Microscopy Award for Electron Microscopy, Dr. Kedar Narayan. Dr. Narayan is very involved with the grassroots Volume EM (vEM) community, and has used his time at Frederick National Laboratory to not only benefit cancer research, but microscopy technique as a

An Interview with Dr. Huaiying Zhang

Posted by Subhajit Dutta, on 6 December 2024

Dr. Huaiying Zhang is an Eberly Family Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Physics. Her research focuses on the functional significance of phase transitions in cells, particularly in the context of cancer. By developing chem-optogenetic tools, she explores

An interview with Dr. Vaishnavi Ananthanarayanan

Posted by Greg Redpath, on 4 November 2024

Dr. Vaishnavi Ananthanarayanan is the 2025 recipient of the Royal Microscopical Society Award for Life Sciences. She is the first winner outside of Europe, highlighting the incredible cellular imaging she has led across the world. Dr. Vaishnavi Ananthanarayanan is an EMBL Australia Group Leader in the Department of Molecular Medicine at UNSW, Sydney. Vaishnavi received

Interview with Piyush Daga

Posted by Helen Zenner, on 3 September 2024

Piyush was one of the three-minute talk presenters at our recent science communication event, SciCommConnect. At the event, which we co-hosted with the Node and preLights, we were treated to fantastic talks on a range of topics. Piyush’s talk really stood out to us, not least because of the striking microscopy image on his slide.

An interview with Maribel Torres Velázquez

Posted by Mariana De Niz, on 6 August 2024

MiniBio: Maribel Torres Velázquez is a NURTURE postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Prof. Gregory Schwartz at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, where she uses microscopy to study the retina-to-brain circuitry. Specifically, she aims to uncover the retina-brain connectivity map by identifying to which unique brain areas different retinal ganglion cell sub-types

An interview with Lisandra Vila Ellis

Posted by Mariana De Niz, on 23 July 2024

MiniBio: Lisandra Vila-Elis is Assistant Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at Northwestern University, where she studies the role of a newly discovered endothelial cell population in the lungs, and their relevance to gas diffusion and lung health and disease. Lisandra was born in Cuba, and moved to Ecuador at a young age. She then

An interview with Esley Torres

Posted by Mariana De Niz, on 2 July 2024

MiniBio: Esley Torres began his career in Cuba, and is currently a postdoctoral scientist and lecturer at Universidad de la República, in Montevideo, Uruguay. Esley began his undergraduate studies in Chemistry and changed directions to pursue an undergraduate degree in Mathematics at the University of Havana, Cuba. He worked at the Institute of Cybernetics, Mathematics

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Microscopy-related articles from our journals

HCR spectral imaging: 10-plex, quantitative, high-resolution RNA and protein imaging in highly autofluorescent samples Development 2024 151: dev202307
filoVision – using deep learning and tip markers to automate filopodia analysis J Cell Sci 2024 137: jcs261274
C omputational tools for quantifying actin filament numbers, lengths, and bundling Biology Open 2024 13: bio.060267

Microscopy-related preprint highlights

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