Scottish Microscopy Society Newsletter
March 2022
Keep up to date with our plans and get involved!
|
|
|
6th – 8th April 2022, Galway Bay Hotel, Ireland
We are running our 2nd joint conference with the Microscopy Society of Ireland in person this April in the beautiful Galway Bay, Ireland.
The day will include microscopy talks from across various microscopy themes such as advances in image analysis, correlative light & electron microscopy, instrument development, as well as microscopy for materials and biological applications. We will also have a dedicated ECR session, poster session, trade delegates and community panel discussions, as well as a conference dinner and plenty of opportunities to network.
- 4x £100 travel bursaries to the conference are available to subsidise travel of Scottish ECR delegates - sponsored by the RMS Early Career Committee. Any person undertaking work in the field of microscopy at a Scottish University and belonging to one of the following categories is eligible for this travel bursary: current undergraduate/postgraduate/Masters/PhD students; or within 8 years of starting work or studies in a microscopy-related field (excluding career gaps)
- 2x £200 student travel grant prize talk - in collaboration with Jeol and FocalPlane. These awards will be selected based on scientific merit and the winner will be allocated a prize talk alongside the money. In addition, the FocalPlane winner will write a short piece for the FocalPlane website, on a subject on their choice. These awards are open to all current PhD students. Abstracts centred around Biology/life sciences are encouraged to enter the FocalPlane competition, whilst physical/materials-based abstracts should enter the Jeol competition.
- €250 Chan Zuckerberg (CZI) Initiative award for most technologically innovative student talk/poster. CZI is a philanthropy founded in 2015 by Dr Priscilla Chan and her husband, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to help solve some of society’s toughest challenges — from eradicating disease and improving education, to addressing the needs of our local communities. This award is open to all current students.
These bursaries and competitions can be applied for through the abstract submission page.
After the conference, SULSA will also be providing bursaries of £250 to cover travel/accommodation for Scottish delegates to go to Ireland for post-meeting collaborations. These will be open to any Scottish delegates who attended the conference and have developed new collaborations with labs or facilities in Ireland. Details will be made available at the conference and on the SULSA website.
For more informationabout the conference see our website, the MSI website and our Twitter feed, or join our mailing list below to keep up to date. We look forward to seeing you there!
|
|
|
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 26 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.
Microscopy Facility Funding: Projects Awarded
We partnered with SULSA to fund put out a second round of Microscopy Facilities Funding to cover enhancements to facilities registered in our database through purchasing of new equipment (hardware or software).
We're delighted to announce the following awards, which will be used to strengthen the capabilities of microscopy facilities in Scotland.
Find out abour previous winners on our website.
Thank you to our industry sponsors, Nikon Instruments and Agar Scientific, and to all of the companies who sponsored us for making it possible to maintain this database. |
|
|
|
Congratulations to the winners of the competitions run for out 2021 SMS Sympsoium: Emerging Technologies in Microscopy:
Research Image Competition - sponsored by Horiba: The home of FLASH-FLIM
Winning Image: Intestinal Forest - Frederic Fercoq, CRUK Beatson Institute
Lymphocytes (red) in optically cleared small intestine. Maxiumum intensity projection of a 100um z-stack.
Judges' Choice Competition - sponsored by FocalPlane
Winning Image: Invading Cancer Cells - Jamie Whitelaw, CRUK Beatson Institute
NckAP1 KO B16-F1 cells migrating through matrigel in a circular invasion assay. Cells were fixed and stained using Phalloidin in magenta, Tubulin in cyan and DAPI in yellow. Z-stacked, tile scan images were taken on the Zeiss 880 AiryScan at 20X objective and displayed at a max projection. Note that for some unknown reason, the tubulin staining appears reduced in follower cells compared to the leader cells, while F-actin remains uniform throughout.
Video Competition - sponsored by Digital Pixel
Winning video: Dictyostelium discoideum cells - Peggy Paschke, CRUK Beatson Institute
Dictyostelium discoideum is a social amoeba that lives in the soil. As single cells they mainly feed on bacteria. If their nutrient sources are getting exhausted the cells aggregate and form fruiting bodies to survive these harsh conditions. When Dictyostelium undergoes starvation, the cells start to communicate with each other through the secretion of the signaling molecule cAMP. The secretion of cAMP happens in waves which are visualized by the Flamindo2 reporter. Flamindo2 is based on the green fluorescent protein mCitrine which contains an EPAC motif that can bind cAMP. If cAMP is bound by Flamindo2 the fluorescence signal decreases. Shown are cells which were starved for 4h before starting the imaging to induce the starvation response. The movie shows the following 6 hours of the developmental cycle of Dictyostelium, starting with early cAMP waves that later lead to the formation of streams and mounds.
Spotlight on Facilities Competition - sponsored by Zeiss
|
|
|
Other News
Microscope Parts Exchange
New items are often added to our Microscope Parts Exchange. Keep an eye on available equipment to help us re-home unused microscopy equipment and let us know if you have any equipment that you would like to advertise.
RMS Microscopy Activity Kits
The SMS has paired with the RMS to distribute their Microscopy Activity Kits around Scotland.
To learn more about what the kit contains, follow the link to the RMS website. To to book the kit for an event around Scotland email us directly at scotmicro@outlook.com or use the web contact form.
Upcoming Atomic Force Microscopy Workshop
Keep an eye out for information about an upcoming AFM Workshop run by Bruker in Edinburgh. This will focus on biological applications of atomic force microscopy, demonstrate Bruker's newest AFM systems and will be open to any researchers interested in this technique.
#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!
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
New Nikon Plan Apochromat Lambda D Objectives Series
The newly developed Nikon CFI Plan Apochromat Lambda D range is a high-performance objective series optimized for digital solutions that are essential for future life science research. The Lambda D series objectives deliver high image quality across an unparalleled large field of view of 25 mm with chromatic aberration correction over a wide wavelength range, improving the accuracy of quantitative analysis and realize highly reliable data acquisition.
New Nikon DS10 Microscopy Camera
The Nikon Digital Sight 10 allows unprecedented high resolution of 6K and switching between color and monochrome capture with a single camera. This high-performance model also features a high frame rate for fast focusing on high-definition images.
Contact Del Boccorh ( Delali.Boccorh@nikon.com), Key Account Manager for Scotland, for more information or to arrange a demo.
|
|
|
|
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
Social Media
Share
Share this newsletter with friends and colleagues by clicking through the links below:
|
|
|
|
|
