Cal’s PhD research involves developing imaging methods allowing viral co-infections to be visualised in vivo across length scales – from interactions within co-infected cells to whole lungs. He has invested significant time in developing protocols, analysis tools and training to make these advanced methods accessible to a large group of less experienced microscopists. 

On the microscale, he uses thick section confocal microscopy and single molecule fluorescent in situ hybridisation (smFISH) to visualise the intercellular processes governing the emergence of pandemic viral strains He realised there were no software tools that allow wet lab biologists without coding experience to conduct complex smFISH analysis. This meant datasets were often underexamined with analysis typically limited to single markers. He addressed this by creating FISHtoFigure (Bentley-Abbot et al., Sci. Rep. 2024), a user-friendly, open source, graphical user interface driven analysis tool enabling all users to conduct multiplex analyses of smFISH data, regardless of computational analysis experience.

On the mesoscale, he used light sheet microscopy to visualise viral co-infection across the whole lung for the first time, developing a modular optical clearing protocol capable of clearing a wide variety of tissues from bone to skin explants as part of this. He has taken on the day-to-day management of this facility, providing training for researchers, and assist in sample preparation and data analysis.  The expertise and assistance I provide is evidenced in collaborative publications, including Quintana et al., Nat. Commun. 2022, Pirillo et al. Sci. Immunol. 2023, and Weir et al., Biorxiv, 2024. By developing my wider microscopy experience and using it to advise new users I have driven a significant increase in the number of researchers and collaborators using CVR lightsheet facilities. 

In recognition of his varied contributions to the Scottish Microscopy community, Cal has been awarded £500, kindly supported by Jeol and Nikon