Morning Session

10.00-10.15  Welcome and latest FILM News (Tony Magee)
New microscopes, new equipment, new staff

10.15-11.15  Basics of microscopy (Martin Spitaler, FILM)
Image formation, fluorescence, visualisation, quantitation

11.15-11.35  coffee & tea break

11.35-12.15  Sample preparation for live and fixed samples (Stephen Rothery, FILM)
Fixatives, strategies, viability, autofluorescence

Microscopy Match-Maker

12.15-13.00  Microscopy Match-Maker
Research performed in FILM, presented by users
through 3 min snapshot presentations

13.00-14.00  Sandwich lunch
with opportunity to see the new super-resolution microscope

Afternoon Session

14.00-14.40 Super-resolution microscopy (Debora Keller, FILM)
PALM, STORM, SIM, resolution limits, artefacts

14.40-15.00  coffee & tea break

PLENARY SESSION

15.00-15.55  Cristina Lo Celso, Imperial College: “Intra-vital imaging in stem cell biology”

15.55-16.50 Philipp Kukura, Oxford: “Molecular Imaging”

16.50-17.00 Tony Magee: Round-up

FILM Microscopy Day 2014: Plenary session

Cristina Lo Celso, Imperial College: “Intra-vital imaging in stem cell biology”

  After a PhD from University College London in the field of epidermal stem cell biology, Dr Lo Celso worked as a postdoc at Harvard University developing intra-vital microscopy of the haematopoietic stem cell niche. In 2009 she was appointed assistant professor at Imperial College London, where she has established a research group focussing on understanding the cellular mechanisms regulating haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) function and leukaemia development and . In close collaboration with FILM, her group has developed tools to study HSCs in their native bone marrow environment. She will present an interdisciplinary approach combining intra-vital microscopy techniques, computational image analysis, molecular profiling and mathematical modelling and the group's most recent observations of the dynamic interactions between HSCs and the bone marrow microenvironment.

Philipp Kukura, Oxford: “Molecular Imaging”

The primary goal of optical microscopy is to visualise microscopic structure and dynamics. Developments over the past decades have enabled routine studies down to the single molecule level and structural observations far beyond the diffraction limit through the use of fluorescence as a contrast mechanism. Despite its many advantages, one of the fundamental limitations of fluorescence detection is the frequency with which photons can be emitted and thus detected. As a consequence, imaging speeds remain limited to few to tens of frames per resulting in a considerable gap between the speed at which dynamics can be recorded and the speed of motion on the nanoscale.

 I will describe an alternative approach to optical microscopy that relies on the ultra-efficient detection of light scattering called interferometric scattering microscopy (iSCAT). I will show that iSCAT can follow the motion of nanoscopic labels with nm precision down to the microsecond regime, the relevant timescale for a majority of dynamics on the nanoscale. Thereby, we are able to address a surprising variety of fundamental questions ranging from the mechanism underlying processive molecular motion to the existence and formation of lipid rafts in membranes. Finally, I will show that iSCAT can detect, image and track the motion of single, proteins using light scattering without the need for any labels.