ZOOMing IN: Advanced Light Microscopy Course

Seeing is believing. Light microscopy techniques are essential for many fields of research in life sciences. Using the appropriate microscope and technique can make an extraordinary difference in the quality of the obtained results. On the other hand, it is crucial that the acquired data are correctly processed and quantified, to ensure scientific reproducibility and fidelity.

More often than not, researchers struggle with finding the most suitable microscopy technique and how to use the acquired data in an effective way.

With all of this in mind, LYRIS designed a course that covers these knowledge gaps. The course is divided into four sessions of 2 hours each that will run every Monday from October 3 to October 24 at 9h30 CEST.

𝗦𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟭:

In the first session we will set the ground for the next modules with a theoretical overview about light microscopy techniques.

Dr. Paula Sampaio is the Advanced Light Microscopy Platform Head at i3S, National Coordinator for the Portuguese Platform of Bioimaging and the CSO and Co-founder of iLoF, a startup that just landed a 5M $ seed round.

𝗦𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟮:

Fiji software  is free and  extensively used by researchers to process microscopy images. In this session we will explore tools and methods that transform acquired images into useful data.

This session will be interactive and the participants will receive instructions prior to the session to optimize time and better explore Fiji possibilities.

Dr. Gábor Csordás is a research associate at the ELKH Biological Research Centre, Szeged, Hungary. Passionate for microscopy, he has used several microscopy techniques and model organisms to answer his scientific questions during his career.

𝗦𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟯

Imaris can be an extremely useful software to analyze acquired microscopy images. In this session we will give an overview of Imaris functions, showing the different packages that are available depending on the field of research. This will be followed by a practical session where the more general functions can be tested: examples of single plane and z-stack analysis, deconvolution, 3D reconstruction, distance measurements, organelle characteristics quantifications (number, size, shape).

IMARIS will provide a free trial version for everyone who wants to keep exploring the software after the session.

Dr. Nick Jones is a Regional Sales Engineer at IMARIS.

𝗦𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟰

In this final session we host a roundtable of researchers that are world-class experts in their fields and use different light microscopy techniques in their research, highlighting their applications and type of data acquired.

Confirmed speakers:

Dr. Eurico Morais de Sa is a group leader at I3S, Porto, Portugal. Using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism, Eurico has used different microscopy techniques to present his remarkable and beautiful research in the field of cell polarity and cell division. In this session Eurico will talk about his recent project using optogenetics.

Prof. Ralf Jungmann is an associate Professor for Experimental Physics, Allen Distinguished Investigator in Epigenetics since 2017 and group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry and Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. Prof. Jungmann has extensive expertise in microscopy techniques applied to molecular imaging and epigenetics. In this session Prof. Jungmann will present the DNA-PAINT method.