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.

Join or access here

Recent posts

Vote for your favourite image

Posted by FocalPlane, on 11 March 2025

We are delighted to unveil the shortlisted images in the Node–FocalPlane image competition. Thanks to everyone that entered, we received so many fantastic images and congratulations to all the finalists. You can vote for your favourite image using the poll at the bottom of the page.

Microscopy preprints – bioimage analysis

Posted by FocalPlane, on 7 March 2025

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

ScanR workshop report

Posted by Rebecca M. Jones, on 3 March 2025

In mid-August 2024, I had the fantastic opportunity of attending the ScanR workshop; held at the Institute of Biophysics in Brno, Czech Republic and organised by world-leading experts who have been using this technology for >10 years. Being renowned as the birthplace of the father of genetics, Gregor Johann Mendel, the location was also special,

Featured image with Anthony Dornan and Fara van der Schans

Posted by FocalPlane, on 28 February 2025

Our featured image, acquired by Anthony Dornan and Fara van der Schans, showcases the perinuclear distribution of mitochondria in the highly respiratory human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) tumour cells (Panc-1) stained with the mitochondrial stain TMRE (thermal LUT), the mitochondria are associated with the nuclei, stained with DAPI (cyan). The live cell image is a maximum intensity Z-projection generated

Are you the recipient of a Travelling Fellowship? Tell us your story

Posted by Saanjbati Adhikari, on 27 February 2025

Did you know that The Company of Biologists’ journals – Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology and Disease Models & Mechanisms – offer Travelling Fellowships to early-career researchers (graduate students and postdocs) so that they can make collaborative visits to other research laboratories across the world? The first cohort of Travelling Fellowships was launched for Development in

Join us as an intern

Posted by FocalPlane, on 27 February 2025

The Company of Biologists is looking for one or more interns, through the BBSRC DTP/PIPS or equivalent schemes, to work on our community sites – the Node, preLights and FocalPlane. This is a great opportunity to gain experience in the rapidly growing online science communication environment, to develop writing skills, and to learn about academic publishing.

Announcing our 2025 FocalPlane correspondents

Posted by FocalPlane, on 24 February 2025

We are delighted to welcome our latest correspondents to the FocalPlane community. We are looking forward to working with Sally Horton, Varsha Mahapatra and Nicole Noel throughout 2025 and can’t wait to read their blog posts! Sally is a postdoctoral fellow at The Francis Crick Institute in London, UK. At The Crick, her research focusses

View more posts …