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.

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Recent posts

JCS snapshot: Redefining colocalization analysis with a novel phasor mixing coefficient

Posted by FocalPlane, on 6 March 2026

In our latest JCS snapshot we hear from Owen Puls, who together with Teng-Leong Chew and team define a new strategy for quantifying biological association that leverages multispectral imaging and phasor analysis, termed the phasor mixing coefficient (PMC). In this snapshot, Owen takes us through the key findings from their research.

Imaging spotlight: the axonal membrane-associated periodic skeleton

Posted by FocalPlane, on 5 March 2026

In this paper highlight, Nick Boyer takes us through the key results and imaging techniques that they used in their research dissecting the axonal membrane-associated periodic skeleton with Rohan Sharma, Christophe Leterrier, Subhojit Roy and colleagues.

Workshop report: CSHL Quantitative Imaging (QI): From Acquisition to Analysis

Posted by FocalPlane, on 4 March 2026

Estefania Sanchez-Vasquez shares her workshop report from the CSHL course on Quantitative Imaging (QI): From Acquisition to Analysis. Estefania’s attendance was supported by a JCS-FocalPlane Training Grant.

Imaging spotlight: PhotoFiTT

Posted by FocalPlane, on 2 March 2026

In this paper highlight, we learn about PhotoFiTT, a framework for measuring phototoxicity in live-cell fluorescence microscopy. Mario Del Rosario and Estibaliz Gómez-de-Mariscal, the co-first authors of PhotoFiTT answer our questions about their work.

Featured image with Ioannis Theodorou

Posted by FocalPlane, on 27 February 2026

Our featured image, from Ioannis Theodorou, was acquired with Leica Stellaris 8 and the TauSeparation mode. It is the TauContrast channel and it shows the average fluorophore lifetime per pixel. The image was processed on Las X and inkscape. The region shown comes from compressed wood tissue.

The journey of co-organizing the GloBIAS Training School in Kobe, Japan, by Ana Stojiljkovic

Posted by Beatriz Serrano-Solano, on 26 February 2026

This article was written by Ana Stojiljkovic, Bioimage Analyst in the Data Science Lab, University of Bern, Switzerland After many years of being active in the NEUBIAS community, first as a trainee and later as a trainer and conference organizer, I was excited and curious to embark on the GloBIAS journey. After a successful first