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 Special Issue – ‘Cilia and Flagella: from Basic Biology to Disease’

Posted by FocalPlane, on 10 November 2025

We’ll be celebrating the research published in JCS’s special issue on cilia and flagella with the UK Cilia and Centrosome Network at their upcoming symposium on Tuesday 25 November.

FocalPlane features… membrane trafficking recordings

Posted by FocalPlane, on 10 November 2025

In September, we hosted a special online symposium together with the Membrane Trafficking webinar series, organised by Francesca Bottanelli, Felix Campelo and Ishier Raote. The webinar featured short talks from Nick Ader (UNC Greensboro), Hannes Maib (University of Sheffield) and Mónica Quiñones-Frías (Brandeis University), followed by a keynote lecture from Gillian Griffiths (Yale University. You can view the recordings of

Microscopy preprints – applications in biology

Posted by FocalPlane, on 31 October 2025

Here is a curated selection of preprints published recently. In this post, we share preprints that use microscopy tools to answer questions in biology.

UK Bioimaging Launches User Access Fund for Researchers

Posted by Georgina Fletcher, on 31 October 2025

Five-year initiative provides up to £5,000 per application for access to cutting-edge bioimaging facilities UK researchers now have unprecedented access to state-of-the-art bioimaging technologies through a new fund announced by the UK Node of Euro-BioImaging. The UK Bioimaging User Access Fund, supported by £1.8 million in strategic funding from UKRI-BBSRC and UKRI-MRC over five years,

Volume EM Visualization of 3D Synaptic Ultrastructure in Postmortem Human Prefrontal Cortex

Posted by Janithri Wickramanayake, on 31 October 2025

by J.R. Glausier1, M. Maier1, J. Kozel1, C. Bouchet-Marquis2, K. Wu2, et al., 1University of Pittsburgh and 2Thermo Fisher Challenge Synaptic function and ultrastructure are intrinsically coupled; thus, volume electron microscopy (vEM) offers the ability to quantitatively interrogate multiple ultrastructural correlates of function within the individual synapses that populate a brain volume. By applying vEM

Microscopy preprints – new tools and techniques in imaging

Posted by FocalPlane, on 22 October 2025

Here is a curated selection of preprints posted recently on new tools and techniques in imaging. Let us know if we are missing any recent preprints that are on your reading list!