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

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.

Imaging with… ADMiRA

Posted by FocalPlane, on 16 March 2026

In our ‘Imaging with…’ blog post, we meet the team at ADMiRA, the Advanced Microscopy Applications Unit at the National Cancer Institute in Mexico City.

Featured image with Julia Zheku

Posted by FocalPlane, on 13 March 2026

Our featured image, acquired by Julia Zheku, depicts a maize (corn) cross section, with a developing nodal root dynamically breaking through the basal stem node which is typically found below the soil surface. Such a root is not visible while sectioning, making this a beautiful, yet lucky, image. The section was prepared by mounting the

Spider-like neurons finding their way: signposts for multipolar migration in the developing brain

Posted by Jaakko Lehtimäki, on 11 March 2026

Developing neurons travel large distances and orchestrate into precise layers to enable functional wiring of the brain. Within this unique tissue environment, many neurons use their neighbors like railway tracks, navigating in a directed manner toward their correct layer. However, this is not always the case. Multipolar migration, where cells extend multiple protrusions and display

International Symposium for Mechanobiology 2026

Posted by Carsten Schulte, on 10 March 2026

The mechanobiology community will meet in Glasgow on 12-16 July 2026 – you still have the chance to be a part of it!

Imaging spotlight: Altair-LSFM

Posted by FocalPlane, on 9 March 2026

In this paper highlight from Kevin Dean and colleagues, we learn about Altair-LSFM, a light-sheet fluorescence microscope that they designed so it can be built and operated in biology labs without needing a full-time optical engineer.

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