(Scientific) Riddles in the Dark

Advances in imaging Arabidopsis embryogenesis Babić et al. @istaresearch.bsky.social @milanzupunski.bsky.social @frimllab.bsky.social nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

PhD Opportunity Alert! The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions PhD programme AGILE (Advanced microscopy and image analysis around the plant nucleus) has 15 PhD positions in 6 different countries. This includes one here at Oxford Brookes University with the Kriechbaumer group.

TEM Rorschach time! First up: fish

On Saturday we Zoomed Into Life at the @obu-hst-research.bsky.social Science Bazaar! Cool things included beetles close up, build-a-cell and a peek at life from the River Thames: featuring a heliozoan, lots of choanoflagellates and a hunting Lacrymaria cilliate

Showbiz news! Our microscopes will be featured in the new series of CBBC's Operation Ouch, starting with "Awesome Earwax" at 6pm on 23rd February!

Preparations are underway for the "Zooming into Life" activity stall at the @obu-hst-research.bsky.social 2026 Science Bazaar. Here is a photo from last year, and a sneak preview of one of our samples for this year!

We are very excited that they are trying to revive The Muppet Show 🐸🐷

What a beautiful dividing cell, we can clearly see the chromosomes and even count them with MAGNIFY in Arabidopsis root tip. © Magali Grison @monica-bic.bsky.social @lbm-bordeaux.bsky.social

John Gurdon taught us that the beginning of life is never truly lost — only waiting to be reawakened. Long before his ideas were accepted, he showed that a cell remembers more than it appears to know: that within a differentiated nucleus lies the latent capacity to begin anew go.nature.com/3Mf8SD0

🔬UK researchers: Access cutting-edge bioimaging tech + expert support with our User Access Fund! 💷 £5k for imaging 💷 £2k for image analysis Choose from 6 top UK facilities, contact them, then apply! rms.org.uk/user-access-fund ⏰ Next deadline: 31 March ✅ Decision in 4 weeks Pls share!

Congratulations to Barrack Owino on passing his PhD viva! Barrack used a range of our LM and EM systems to do his research on Leishmania. We will miss you Barrack; @macleanlab.bsky.social you've gained a gem!

The lab is a hive of activity today- no wonder the microscopes are booked out so much next week!

Great to see the breath of research at the Oxford Brookes HST Postgraduate Research Symposium- including wonderful findings made with our microscope systems 🔬🎓🦠

Finally,congratulations to Carmen Mata Mangas for winning the poster prize

The final talk of the day: Mark Johnston of Syngenta on using microscopy in crop protection research

Sam Caddell from MOA Technology explaining how the GALAXY platform aids novel herbicide discovery and understanding how these new herbicides work

Nikon's Aki Suto demonstrating the @picoquant.bsky.social FLIM system on our AX NSPARC confocal

Flash talks! 📸

Mark Fricker now speaking about quantitative organelle imaging in plants

Secondly, Petra Boevink from The James Hutton Institute on plant pathogens, secreted RXLR effectors and the pitfalls of imaging infected plants

Time for the short talks- first, Joanna Chustecki on imaging the dynamics of plant mitochondria

Larry Griffing of Texas A&M explaining cell autonomous calcium oscillations- the "heartbeat" of plant cells #sparkle ✨️

Post-lunch, @ajcellbio.bsky.social telling us about imaging plant endocytosis using multiple techniques 🔬

AX NSPARC demos underway!

Now speaking is Ho-Wei Wu of @slcuplants.bsky.social about imaging of circadian gene expression in live growing root tips

@obcbioimaging.bsky.social 's very own Charlotte Pain telling us about imaging the very dynamic plant endoplasmic reticulum

Next up Ray Wightman of @slcuplants.bsky.social talking about confocal, FLIM and Raman microscopy of plants🌿🔬

Thank you to @obu-hst-research.bsky.social Pro Vice-Chancellor Prof Astrid Schloerscheidt for opening the conference

First talk at Flora in Focus- Gail Preston @gmpreston.bsky.social of University of Oxford, speaking about metal hyperaccumulation and plant pathogen protection

Not just flurries of snow in Oxford- flurries of activity as we set up for Flora in Focus: A Microscopy Conference for Plant Scientists

Christmas- the time of year you get out the fancy stuff 🔬💎 (The History of Science Museum in Oxford has some nice blingy things)

It's certainly been a busy year at the RMS - and you can read more about what we've been up to over the last 12 months in our special 'Annual Highlights' feature in the latest issue of infocus Magazine #RMSinfocus 🙌 Read more: https://ow.ly/ogpE50XImkl

We’re excited to announce our special guest speaker for Flora in Focus: A Microscopy Conference for Plant Scientists Join us as Dr Alex Johnson, Research Fellow at University of Exeter, presents “Probing plant endocytosis at multiple scales.”

🔬 THREAD: UK Bioimaging User Access Fund is OPEN! Up to £5k for imaging experiments, £2k for image analysis Access world-class facilities at Crick, ESRIC, KCL, Liverpool, Oxford Brookes & York First deadline: 9 Dec 2025 📅 🧵👇

We are pleased to announce the full list of speakers for Flora in Focus: A Microscopy Conference for Plant Scientists. Sign up now to reserve your spot! bit.ly/42fqd3y

🎤 Meet our speaker: Sam Caddell! As a scientist at MOA Technology, he will be sharing "GALAXY a high content imaging platform enabling novel herbicide discovery " - a session you won’t want to miss!

With submissions invited for the 2026 BioImaging Awards, we thought we would share some of the 'comedy' images submitted in previous years #bioimaging #oxfordbrookes #graduateresearchsymposium

Registration is *NOW OPEN* for the 21st International Microscopy Congress, taking place in Liverpool from 31 August - 4 September 2026 🙌 🔬 🙂 Book now: https://www.imc21.org.uk/

#uexm of human airway motile cilia

We are excited to welcome Professor Mark Fricker, Professor of Plant Sciences, Department of Biology at University of Oxford, to our upcoming event! His talk will offer valuable insights into Quantitative organelle imaging ✨

P Duckney @obu-hst-research.bsky.social & colleagues: Functional characterization reveals the importance of Arabidopsis ECA4 & EPSIN3 in clathrin mediated endocytosis & wall structure in apical growing cells (Paywalled: doi.org/10.1111/nph....) FREE #brookes #oa radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/items/...

We are pleased to announce that Dr Lawrence Griffing, Associate Professor, Director of Microscopy and Imaging Centre, Associate Director of Nikon Center of Excellence, at Texas A&M University, will be presenting at our event in Oxford - Flora in Focus: A Microscopy Conference for Plant Scientists

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Raymond Wightman, Microscopy Core Facility Manager at The Sainsbury Laboratory, University of Cambridge, will be presenting at our event. Dr. Wightman will be sharing "FLIM-confocal-Raman imaging in all things plant" - a session you won't want to miss!

We are excited to invite Dr. Mark Johnson to present his special talk "From Lens to Field: The Use of Microscopy in Crop Protection Research" at our special microscopy conference for plant scientists 🎉

This is a glimpse of the cytoskeletal structures we found doing U-ExM in more than 200 species, now in Cell🤩: shorturl.at/6oHvi Amazing collaboration between @centriolelab.bsky.social , @dudinlab.bsky.social and @gautamdey.bsky.social labs. I believe last one is a 🕷️ #FluorescenceFriday #Microscopy

In their Review, Olivier Mercey, @marinebrunet.bsky.social, Paul Guichard & Virginie Hamel @centriolelab.bsky.social highlight advances in microscopy that have significantly deepened our understanding of centriolar & ciliary structure & function. journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/... #OpenAccess

Incoming deadline - 7 November 2025 Apply for a @jcellsci.bsky.social @focalplane.bsky.social Training Grant to support your attendance at a #microscopy or #bioimageanalysis training course. Open to ECRs in #cellbio. For more info: www.biologists.com/grants/jcs-f...

Flora in Focus: A Microscopy Conference for Plant Scientists Date: Wednesday 7th January, 2026 Time: 9:15 – 17:00 Location: Sir Kenneth Wheare Hall, Clerici Building, Oxford Brookes University, Headington, Oxford, OX3 0BP