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.

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Recent posts

Celebrating 100 years of The Company of Biologists

Posted by Alex Eve, on 14 January 2025

Happy New Year, everyone. 2025 is a big year for us at The Company of Biologists, marking 100 years since the Company was founded. We’re using this opportunity to reflect on what we do, how we got here and what lies ahead, alongside some special celebrations of this once-in-a-lifetime milestone. Here, I highlight four projects

France-BioImaging Challenge is back! Fuse My Cells

Posted by mberaud, on 13 January 2025

For a second running year, France-BioImaging organizes its data machine learning competition: we introduce you Fuse My Cells challenge! What is France-BioImaging? France-BioImaging is a french National Infrastructure in Biology and Health (INBS) laureate in 2011 of the national Program “Investissements d’Avenir” (PIA-ANR) in the field of biological imaging. FBI is at the crossroads between molecular and cell biology,

Microscopy preprints – applications in biology

Posted by FocalPlane, on 10 January 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.

An interview with Lina El Hajji

Posted by FocalPlane, on 9 January 2025

Lina was one of the three-minute talk presenters at our science communication event, SciCommConnect. At the event, which we co-hosted with the Node and preLights, we were treated to fantastic talks on a range of topics. Lina has kindly allowed us to share her presentation and we caught up with Lina to learn more about

Meeting report: Biomolecular Horizons 2024

Posted by Greg Redpath, on 6 January 2025

In September 2024 I attended the Biomolecular Horizons conference in Melbourne, Australia. This was a large conference with 9 concurrent sessions over 4 days. There was a lot of great biology presented from around the world, but in my meeting report I wanted to highlight something unique about the conference: the Indigenous Perspectives in Biomolecular

What Happens When Light Meets Cell: Is It Stress, Signal, or Something More?

Posted by Neelabh Datta, on 30 December 2024

In the hub of cellular responses, how does a beam of light trigger a cascade of molecular changes in plant cells? This question solves the mystery of photostimulation-induced stress and signaling, especially at the critical contact points between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and chloroplasts. These dynamic cellular sites act as points for communication, resource exchange,

Featured image with the Hughes lab

Posted by FocalPlane, on 20 December 2024

Our featured image, acquired by Sanja Sviben, is an immuno-scanning electron micrograph of a primary cilium, taken from an intact human pancreatic islet. The cilium is a microtubule-based structure and is seen here labeled with colloidal gold for acetylated alpha tubulin.

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