Scottish Microscopy Society Newsletter
October 2021
Keep up to date with our plans and get involved!
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2021 SMS Symposium: Emerging Technologies in Microscopy
Registration is open for our 2021 symposium and attendance is free!
After the success of the 2020 symposium run in association with Bitesize Bio, we will be running our symposium virtually again this year. The symposium will be held on Thursday 25th November 2021 10:00-12:15.
This year's symposium will focus on the theme of Emerging Technologies in Scotland. We are changing up the format this year, and the symposium will thus consist of:
1. Talks from microscopists in the home-build sector who work on biological applications:
- Dr Philip Wijesinghe, University of St Andrews - TRAFIX: Widefield multiphoton imaging at depth
- Dr Beccy Saleeb, University of Edinburgh - Characterising amyloid protein conformers with single molecule microscopy
- Dr Tom Vettenburg, University of Dundee - Curved light for single plane illumination microscopy
2. Panel discussion with the Microscopy Facility Funding awardees:
The panel discussion will cover the new technologies and capabilities that were added to these facilities using the SMS/SULSA Microscopy Facility Funding, as well as how people can access these capabilities and the facilities in general.
3. Flash talks from our industry partners, Nikon and Agar.
Full information on the SMS website.
Competitions
In the run up to the symposium, we will be running three competitions:
1. Research Image Competition - sponsored by Horiba: The home of FLASH-FLIM
2. Spotlight on Facilities Competition - sponsored by Zeiss
Photos of microscope-related activities e.g. users acquiring images, sample preparation, images of the microscope. This competition is also open to industry.
3. Video Competition - sponsored by Digital Pixel
All competitions will open 2 weeks before the symposium. Public voting and winner announcements will take place during the symposium. Check the SMS website and Twitter feed for more details.
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Scottish Microscopy Facilities Database Updates
We recently launched the Scottish Microscopy Facilities Database to help connect microscopy users with open-access facilities across Scotland.
The database is a modern tool that exemplifies the Society's 4 key principles:
- Promote microscopy research facilities in Scotland
- Inform on new technologies and funding prospects
- Connect microscopy developers and researchers
- Inspire collaboration across disciplines and institutions
We currently have 25 facilities listed, offering access to over 100 different optical and electron imaging technologies. There are plenty of different ways to search the database to help connect you to the best imaging technology for your application.
Facilities are constantly updating equipment and expanding the range of techniques they offer, with the help of facility managers we're keeping our database as up-to-date as possible for you to get the most out of it. Some notable recent changes are:
Thank you to our industry sponsors, Nikon Instruments and Agar Scientific for making it possible to maintain this database.
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We will be advertising any microscopy-related events taking place in and around Scotland in here. Please get in touch with us if you would like to advertise your event: scotmicro@outlook.com
Joint Scottish Microscopy Society (SMS) - Microscopy Society of Ireland (MSI) Meeting, 6th-8th April 2022
Next April, we will holding a joint meeting with the Microscopy Society of Ireland. This will be an in-person meeting held in Galway, Ireland. We're really looking forward to hosting this joint event and interacting with our Irish counterparts.
There will be opportunities for you to present your work at the meeting, and we will also be offering travel bursaries to help with travel costs.
More details will be released soon and stay tuned for announcements from SMS and MSI.
Nikon AX Confocal Tour
Confocal microscopes have been commercially available now for over 25 years. How can newer iterations of a fundamentally simple instrument continue to innovate? What changes can redefine how a confocal is used, and what data can be collected? Introducing the Nikon AX/AX R Confocal Microscope System, Nikon's 10th generation point scanning confocal, giving you more of everything: Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI), expanding the number of colours, improving pixel density, sensitivity and speed.
Nikon are taking their new AX confocal on tour in Scotland throughout November and December. If you’d like to come and see the system or discuss how the AX can help in your research please contact Key Account Manager for Scotland Jonathan.Orgill@nikon.com
5th IBIN Networking Meeting
The 5th networking even of the Integrated Biological Imaging Network (IBIN) will be held on 8th November at the University of Birmingham.
The event will launch the final round of pump-prime funding (up to £25k) and will be an opportunity to have in-person discussion on the current bioimaging challenges and solutions.
More details on the event can be found on the IBIN events page.
Journal of Microscopy Special Issue
The Journal of Microscopy is launching a special issue: A Lens on the Future: Next Generation Microscopy by Next Generation Microscopists. This special issue focuses on recent microscopy developments by Early Career Researchers from any microscopy discipline. The guest editors for this issue are Dr Liam Rooney (Heriot-Watt University) and Dr Laura Clark (University of Leeds).
The submission deadline for this issue is 2nd February. More details on the call can be found here.
Keep an eye on our website and our Twitter feed to find out about other webinars we're running.
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Other News
Microscope Parts Exchange
We recently launched a Microscope Parts Exchange to help re-home unused microscopy equipment in Scotland. Let us know if you have any equipment that you would like to advertise on the Exchange and check our website to see what equipment is available.
The Exchange has already seen some equipment successfully re-homed. The image below shows Charlotte Buckley (University of Strathclyde) very happy with her new, pre-loved microscope courtesy of the Beatson Institute, and a few other microscopes that have been re-homed.
#ScotMicroStories
We want to hear all the news from the microscopy community in Scotland so we've launched #ScotMicroStories. Have you handed in your PhD thesis and want to celebrate? Or maybe you've just nailed that labelling protocol and want to shout it from the rooftops? Let us know!
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Check out our Twitter feed for the latest job listings in microscopy in Scotland and further afield.
If you have a vacancy and would like us to advertise it, please contact us: scotmicro@outlook.com
- A PDRA position is available, with 6 months funding in the first instance, to work with Jonathan Taylor (University of Glasgow) on a project in computational microscopy. You will work in collaboration with a commercial partner in the microscope industry to develop strategies to mitigate the impact of sample motion artefacts on the deconvolution process in microscopy. The project has a computational and mathematical focus, working with real-world experimental datasets to improve imaging performance. The project is well suited to remote working; although it cannot be 100% remote it would suit a candidate based anywhere in central Scotland without a requirement to relocate to Glasgow for this short project. We are looking for a candidate to start as soon as possible. For some information on the research environment and context, see https://jmtayloruk.github.io/research. For more details of the project, or to discuss an application, please contact jonathan.taylor@glasgow.ac.uk.
- Electron microscopist, University of Aberdeen (closing date 19th November)
- Senior Scientific Officer, Beatson Institute of Cancer Research (closing date 21st November)
- Post-doctoral researcher, Imperial College London (closing date 11th November)
- Post-doctoral Stem Cell Scientist, Roslin Technologies (closing date 1st November)
- Light Microscopy Specialist, Salk Institute
- Global BioImaging - External Relations Manager, EMBL Heidelberg (closing date 11th November)
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The information on how to stay up to date, join our mailing list and newsletter and share the info with your colleagues and friends.
Website
Mailing list
Sign up for our mailing list by sending us a message here. We have created this mailing list to be able to Promote, Inform and Connect you all. You can post to this mailing list by emailing SCOTTISH-MICROSCOPY-request@jiscmail.ac.uk Please feel free to use this mailing list to:
ask questions relating to microscopy, share events relating to microscopy, share interesting new microscopy developments and technologies, share microscopy-related job openings and funding opportunities.
Newsletter
We have started the SMS Newsletter as the monthly compiler of what we are up to, and what interesting events, job posts, funding calls, etc. we found out for you. Please, sign up for our newsletter here or email us to receive it. You can access the web browser version of the newsletter here or check the previous newsletter editions in our archive. If you'd like us to add anything microscopy-relevant to the next edition, please email us: scotmicro@outlook.com
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