EMBO PRACTICAL COURSE IN ADVANCED OPTICAL MICROSCOPY

Co-sponsored by

MRC and the Company of Biologists

Wednesday 25th March – Saturday 4th April 2009

Application Deadline: 15 February 2009

Workshop Location:

The Marine Biological Association of the UK,

The Laboratory, Citadel Hill, Plymouth, PL1 2PB, U.K.

Tel: +44 (0)1752-633331 Fax: +44(0)1752-262043

Email: (Prof Colin Brownlee and Mrs Alexandra Street)

Website:

The Workshop takes place in the Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association from Wednesday 25th March and ends on Saturday 4thApril 2009. Accommodation comprises bed and breakfast in local guest houses (nights 25th March – Friday 3rd April inclusive), lunch in the MBA common room, and evening meals can be taken in local restaurants.

Timetable

There will be 2- 3 lectures each day throughout. The first 3 days will be spent setting up microscopes for brightfield and epifluorescence microscopy, including polarisation and interference contrast methods. The final 6 days will be organised in rotations around the 9 experiments listed below. The experiments will be in the large classroom at the MBA and in rooms nearby. Use will be made of marine specimens where possible and student may have an opportunity to trawl for benthos and plankton, depending on weather and availability of the collecting boat.

Developmental Biology

1,22 experiments with confocal imaging

3CCD imaging and deconvolution, ,microinjection, genetically encoded probes, gene gun

Cell Physiology

4Confocal imaging with electrophysiology

5CCD imaging with electrophysiology

6Photolysis and photometry

7Total internal reflection fluorescence imaging

8Laser traps

9Marine bioluminescence

Special demonstrations and hands-on exercises

Multiphoton confocal imaging

  • Quantitative interference microscopy
  • Use of an optical bench for basic experiments on scanning and apertures
  • Spectroscopy and filters
  • Abbe’s experiments on the role of diffraction in microscope image formation with absorption and phase objects.

Preparationsused will include: invertebrate preparations (tunicates, molluscan neurones), zebra fish, mammalian brain slices, Fucus, Arabidopsis, and cell lines.

Poster Session Students at the course will be invited to display an A2 poster of their current research and time will be allocated for presentation and discussion of this.

Applications should comprise a concise CV, a description of your current research project, and a letter of recommendation from a senior colleague. Applicant should state whether they would have particular difficulty in paying the 250 euro registration fee. Applications should be emailed (Word / Pdf) to and a hard copy also posted to Mrs Alexandra Street, Marine Biological Association of the UK, Citadel Hill, Plymouth, PL1 2PB, U.K. by 15 February 2009. Acknowledgement of safe receipt of your application will be sent by return. There are 16 places on the course.

Fees: There will be a registration fee for students of 250 euros, but it may be possible to waive this fee in case of difficulty in paying, particularly for students from Eastern Europe. However, candidates from industry who are accepted as students will be required to pay 1000 euro to the MBA.

Details concerning the timetable will be sent to successful applicants separately.

Travel Costs of Students A very limited amount of funding for students’ travel costs will be available. This will be distributed according to country of origin, following EMBO guidelines. Students who wish to claim travel expenses should submit an estimate of their travel costs to the MBA as soon as possible after acceptance for the course.

For an idea of the programme, please see last year’s timetable, below.

Each day, there will be two lectures in the morning (probably 9.00 and 11.00), then practical work, and a lecture in early evening, probably 6 pm.

2008 PROGRAMME (held in March/April 2008)

Each day there were lectures in the morning, then practical work, and a lecture in the early evening. Lunches were served at 13.00

Wednesday Student Registration 5.30pm, Evening Mixer 6pm, Dinner around 7.00pm

Thursday 09.00 Brad Amos; Three Introductory Lectures:

Overview of Optical Microscopy, Ray & Wave Optics and Polarization & Interference

Friday 09.00 Martin Thomas; Light sources

11.30 David Becker; Loading optical probes into cells: triumphs & pitfalls

18.00 Larry Cohen; Voltage & calcium imaging in neurobiology

Saturday 09.00 Bob Dale; Introduction to photophysics: fluorescence, fluorescence polarization & FRET

11.30 Gail McConnell; Pulsed lasers & Non-linear optics

18.00 Noah Russell; Plasmon resonance microscopy

Sunday FREE

Monday 09.00 Stefanie Reichelt; Laser scanning microscopy

11.30 Rainer Heintzmann; STED and super-resolution

18.00 Tony Campbell; Bioluminescence. (Keynes Lecture)

Tuesday 09.00 Graham Dunn; Interference microscopy & advanced fluorescence methods

11.30Gerard Marriott; Molecular switches

18.00 Boris Vojnovic; Practical applications of lifetime imaging in biomedicine

Wednesday09.00 David Wokosin; Multiphoton techniques (Hill Lecture)

11.30 David Ogden; Applications & techniques using caged compounds

18.00 Bob Chow; Endocytosis and TIRF

Thursday 09.00 Godfrey Smith; Physiological & ionic optical probes

11.30 Klaus Suhling; Detectors

18.00 John Dempster; Image processing & software

Friday 09.00 Peter Shaw; Deconvolution methods in microscopy

11.30 John White; New prospects in optical imaging (Royal Microscopical SocietyLecture)

18.00 Christien Merrifield; Fluorescent photoproteins

End Dinner 19.30

Saturday 09.00 Jim Haseloff; Optical studies of plant development

11.00 Iwan Schaap; Laser traps and their uses in nanobiology

Course ended at lunch time.