Advanced Imaging Techniques (AIT 40)

Program

The main content of this workshop is:

• Lectures on microscopy, both basic (e.g. handling, alignment and troubleshooting, fluorescence microscopy, CCD-cameras, confocal microscopy, point spread function, pinhole settings, 2D / 3D acquisition parameters) and advanced (e.g. 2-photon microscopy, Nipkow based confocal, ApoTome, META-detector, Live, TIRF)
• Lectures on fluorescent labeling techniques and advanced GFP methods
• Software demonstration on microscopy software (e.g. Zen blue & black) and image analysis software (e.g. Imaris by Bitplane and Huygens Deconvolution by SVI)
• Practicals at state of the art wide-field microscope systems at the LIC facility
• Practicals at state of the art confocal microscope systems at the LIC facility
• Advanced methods: Time lapse microscopy with GFP und relatives for live cell and organelle-markers
• Advanced methods: FRAP, FLIP, FRET, spectral unmixing and TIRF techniques
• Advanced methods: photo-activation (uncaging), photo-conversion techniques and imaging in 2D, 3D, 4D and 5D
• Analysis of experimental data by state-of the art software for advanced image analysis, restoration and visualization
• Presentation and evaluation of experimental data

The workshop structure consists of 3 major parts: Lectures, Practicals and Analysis

Lectures are dealing with basic and advanced theory on physics behind microscopy, general mechanics of microscopy, various applications of wide-field and confocal imaging methods and imaging strategies.

Practicals start with an in-depth introduction to microscopy software. During the practicals the participants work in small groups supervised by a specialist in microscopy. Participants will conduct simple and more advanced experiments at the microscope systems and gather images/data from this experiments.

Analysis will take place in the late afternoon after the lecture and practical sessions. Participants will use the LIC workstations together with state-of the art image analysis software tools to work on the data gathered throughout the practicals. This includes evaluation of collected data and preparation of a presentation.

All participants have to prepare a protocol / presentation of their work during the AIT workshop. We dedicated time-slots on each day for analysis and preparation of the protocol/presentation. The protocols will be presented and evaluated by the workshop team at the end of the AIT workshop on early Friday afternoon.

The registration fee is 750 €.

Besides expenses for course material, samples, consumables, blocking microscope systems and employees of LIC, it also includes refreshments, coffee & tea with some snacks and sweets for all days of the workshop.

Registration closed!

Please note: The LIC is considering splitting the AIT workshop into a basic AIT and an advanced AIT workshop for the future. Both blocks would have a scope of three full days and cover different aspects of state of the art light microscopy. Instead of 5 days, you would have 6 days with more time for practical work, more time for data analysis and more time for discussion. In addition to the split of the AIT workshop in two parts, we plan to introduce Focus on Advanced Imaging (FAI) Modules on single highly specialized topics throughout the year. Topics would be determined based on hot topics in the LIC facility and user requests/demands.
Since we will introduce significant changes to the AIT workshop for the future, the registration form includes a short survey about the future structure of the AIT workshop.