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

Federal Super-Resolution Network in Argentina

Posted by Lucía Lopez, on 4 December 2025

About twenty years ago, a series of methods known today as super-resolution microscopy were discovered. Since then, super-resolution microscopy has become a powerful tool for discovery in cell biology, biomedicine, and biophysics. However, the complexity of some methods, high costs, and demanding sample preparation protocols have hindered their widespread application. In Argentina, the group led

Epithelial Mechanics Fan Club

Posted by FocalPlane, on 4 December 2025

In this post, Nimesh Chahare and Julia Eckert tell us about the ‘Epithelial Mechanics Fan Club’. You can follow the club on Bluesky, X, and now on their new website. Reach out to Nimesh and Julia if you would like to contribute.

STED Microscopy User Group, December 11, 12 PM ET

Posted by Ethan A. Perets, on 2 December 2025

The next BioImaging North America and Canada BioImaging STED user group will take place via Zoom on December 11 at 12 PM ET/11 AM CT/9 AM PT. Priyam Banerjee (The Rockefeller University) will deliver the presentation, “Ready, STED, Go: A full-stack workflow from fluorophore to feature extraction”, followed by community discussion. We hope you will join us! This user group

Imaging spotlight: Volumetric Imaging via Photochemical Sectioning (VIPS)

Posted by FocalPlane, on 2 December 2025

In this paper highlight, we learn more about VIPS, a method developed by Srigokul Upadhyayula, Ruixuan Gao and colleagues.

Microscopy preprints – new tools and techniques in imaging

Posted by FocalPlane, on 28 November 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!

You can appreciate a lot by looking – using the best microscope in the world – A day in the life of an AIC visitor

Posted by AnjaSchmidt, on 24 November 2025

In November 2024 a group from the Kevin Hamill lab (https://lantsandlaminins.com/) at the University of Liverpool (UK) visited the AIC for 3 weeks to image components of the basal cell membrane using interferometric PALM (iPALM). In this post, Kevin describes their visit and a typical imaging day.

JCS snapshots: the cilia and flagella edition

Posted by FocalPlane, on 24 November 2025

Journal of Cell Science recently published a Special Issue on Cilia and Flagella: from Basic Biology to Disease, edited by Pleasantine Mill and Lotte Pedersen. We invited the authors of the research published in this issue to produce JCS snapshots, short videos highlighting the key findings from their papers. Below, you can find the snapshots

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