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

New webinar series on plant imaging

Posted by FocalPlane, on 30 March 2026

To build on the momentum of our recent Workshop, Macro to micro: quantitative plant imaging across scales, we are launching a new webinar series together with Workshop organisers Alex Johnson (University of Exeter) and Joe McKenna (Warwick University). We’ll be hosting quarterly webinars allowing researchers from all career stages to showcase their research on plant

BINA Nanoscopy User Group, April 9, 12 PM ET

Posted by Ethan A. Perets, on 30 March 2026

The next BioImaging North America Nanoscopy User Group will take place via Zoom on April 9 at 12 PM ET/11 AM CT/9 AM PT. Thomas A. Blanpied (University of Maryland) will deliver the presentation “STED Workflows for Synaptic Nanoarchitecture in the Brain”, followed by community discussion. The focus of the Nanoscopy User Group is to create a

Featured image with Nat Prunet

Posted by FocalPlane, on 27 March 2026

Our featured image from Nat Prunet is a composite image of pollen grains from various plant species. Each pollen grain was imaged separately for red autofluorescence with super-resolution Airyscan on a Zeiss LSM 980 microscope. 3D datasets were processed on Fiji with edge-finding and color-coding for depth.

Imaging spotlight: dissecting the precancerous niche

Posted by FocalPlane, on 25 March 2026

In this paper highlight we hear from Greta Skrupskelyte and Maria Alcolea, who discuss their recent paper dissecting the role of the microenvironment and tumour-stromal communication in tumour growth and survival.

Microscopy preprints: bioimage analysis

Posted by FocalPlane, on 20 March 2026

Here is a curated selection of preprints published (or updated) recently. In this post we focus specifically on bioimage analysis and data management.

Back to the density: using Surface Morphometrics to measure organelle membrane thickness in cryo-electron tomography

Posted by Michaela Medina, on 18 March 2026

Surface Morphometrics is an open-access software that extracts quantitative information of membrane ultrastructure from high resolution cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) data. This tooling allows for the study of organelles in their native environment across large populations in an automated fashion. The Surface Morphometrics pipeline reconstructs three-dimensional triangular surface meshes to model and quantify the cellular membrane

Workshop report: Analytical and Quantitative Light Microscopy (AQLM) Course

Posted by FocalPlane, on 17 March 2026

Aliyah Tate shares her workshop report from the Analytical and Quantitative Light Microscopy (AQLM) Course at Woods Hole. Aliyah’s attendance was supported with a JCS-FocalPlane Training Grant.

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