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.

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Recent posts

What is the cost of knowledge?

Posted by Emily Dearlove, on 23 October 2026

To mark International Open Access Week 2026, The Company of Biologists has been reflecting on this year’s theme: ‘The Cost of Knowledge’. In our latest blog post, ‘The true cost of knowledge: exploring value in publishing‘, we reflect on what researchers value in publishing and who bears the cost of creating that value. We also

Featured image with Emily Chan

Posted by FocalPlane, on 23 October 2026

Our featured image, acquired by Emily Chan, shows a duckweed (Lemna minor) colony and the regions with actively dividing cells within the colony (coloured green).

JCS snapshot – Multimodal coordination of ammonium transporters helps fission yeast survive nitrogen starvation

Posted by FocalPlane, on 19 October 2026

In our latest JCS snapshot we hear from Shet Lee Ng who, together with Yukiko Nakase and team, discovered that multiple ammonium transporters in fission yeast are coordinated by transcriptional and localisation regulation in response to nitrogen starvation. In this snapshot, Shet Lee take us through the key findings from their research.

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).

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