About
Techniques covered by the Section include: multi-dimensional imaging of live cells, organs and intact organisms; optical tomography; spectroscopic and functional imaging (e.g. FRET, FLIM etc); development of novel methods such as super resolution imaging, adaptive optics, optical fibres, GRIN lenses; laser-based and solid-state excitation methods; use of multiphoton imaging, confocal and scanning technologies; digital image acquisition, image filtering and analysis; automated and high-throughput imaging systems.
In addition to the overarching aims of the Society, the Section aims to advance optical imaging in the life sciences and physical sciences through education from high-school to advanced academic levels by holding courses, one-day workshops and 2-day specialist scientific meetings.
Sources of help and advice
(Get help with planning and setting up a microscopy facility)
The confocal listserver, BioImagingUK listserver and microscopy listserver all provide a useful forum where you can contact other professional microscopists, who may well have the answer(s) that you are seeking.
Hint: set up a separate email account for these listservers – they generate a lot of mail responses.
Local and national networks of imaging professionals can likewise provide help and support. For example, within the UK a list of interested and active microscopy facility managers is maintained on our Facilities Database, in co-operation with BioImaging UK
Our regular events include;
Light Microscopy Summer School
The LM summer school is an annual, residential course which runs over 3 days and covers the principles of light microscopy as well as training participants in practical issues surrounding light microscopy. After introductory presentations, the course is taught predominantly through hands-on practical sessions. The course is suitable for both novices and more experienced users wanting to gain a greater understanding of the microscope.
UK Light Microscopy Facility Managers Meeting
This meeting is aimed at people running or working in light microscopy facilities. You can expect to find out more on the latest developments in UK Bioimaging and how we can feed into wider international groups that are starting up. We will also discuss some of the basic elements (funding, impact measures) of running a core facility as well as the latest technological and application developments that effect ourselves and our users.
Frontiers in BioImaging
This is an ideal meeting for both new and established researchers to engage with a broad range of imaging approaches and to make valuable contacts with leading groups in the field.
Getting the most from your Confocal
The course enables students to fully appreciate and utilise the confocal microscope and develop their understanding confocal microscopy background as well as try FRAP, FRET and spectral unmixing. The 2-days consist of short tutorials followed by hands-on practice.
Please note that our meetings are aimed at advancing new or under-represented areas of imaging science and technology - They are run "by the members, for the members". Contact us with suggestions for future meetings.
The RMS is committed to being a welcoming, inclusive Society and encourages diversity across all activities and in the membership of our committees and groups.
If you are interested in joining any of the committees in the future, please visit our Join a Committee page.
RMS Section Awards
Launched in 2014, the Section Awards (formerly known as the Medal Series) recognise those who have made significant contributions to the field of microscopy. The RMS Section Awards celebrate outstanding scientific achievements across all areas of microscopy and flow cytometry with each RMS Science Section able to select a winner for their own award.
Find out more
Committee
Kurt Anderson
Kurt is a cell biologist who uses advanced imaging methods to study cell migration. He completed his PhD at the University of Salzburg in 1997 on the actin-based mechanism of fish keratocyte migration. He then spent 2 years as a post-doc at the Marie Curie Cancer Research Institute (UK) before moving to Dresden in 2001 to set up the light microscopy facility at the new MPI-CBG. In 2005 he moved to the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow, where he runs the Beatson Advanced Imaging Resource (BAIR) and a research group investigating tumor cell migration. His work at the Beatson used imaging methods such as FRAP and FRET to study the molecular dynamics of cell adhesion and migration in vitro and in vivo. In 2016 Kurt moved to the Francis Crick Institute, where he is now Head of the Crick Advanced Light Microscopy Facility (CALM)
Gail McConnell FRMS
Gail is Chair of Biophotonics at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Strathclyde. Following a first degree in Laser Physics and Optoelectronics (1998) and PhD in Physics from the University of Strathclyde (2002), she obtained a Personal Research Fellowship from the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2003) and a Research Councils UK Academic Fellowship (2005), securing a readership in 2008. Since 2004, Gail has received over £9M of research funding from a range of sources including EPSRC, MRC, BBSRC, EU and industry. The work in Gail’s group involves the design, development and application of linear and nonlinear optical instrumentation for biomedical imaging, from the nanoscale to the whole organism. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, and a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society.
Jessica Valli
Jessica is the Facility Manager for the Edinburgh Super-Resolution Imaging Consortium (ESRIC) and is based at the Heriot-Watt University site. Jessica completed her PhD at the University of Oxford in 2017 where she used a wide range of advanced imaging techniques to study parasite-host interactions. Jessica now works in an interdisciplinary environment, running the imaging facility at the Institute of Biological Chemistry, Bioengineering and Biophysics at Heriot-Watt University.
Richard Bowman
Richard is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Reader at the University of Glasgow, whose research interests focus on instrumentation development for automated microscopy. Over the last six years he has led the OpenFlexure project, which uses open source hardware as a means to make automated laboratory experiments more repeatable and more accessible. This includes extensive collaboration with engineering and clinical collaborators in Tanzania, with the aim of enabling local engineers to manufacture digital microscopes suitable for medical diagnostics. He obtained his PhD in 2012 from the University of Glasgow working on optical micromanipulation, then spent four years in Cambridge working on microspectroscopic characterisation of single nanostructures before moving to Bath. He moved to the University of Glasgow in 2022.
Siân Culley
Siân is a Royal Society University Research Fellow at King’s College London, working on developing new image analysis methods driven by real biological questions. Previously she was a postdoctoral research in Ricardo Henriques’ lab at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, UCL, working on analytical methods for improving super-resolution fluorescence microscopy. Prior to joining Ricardo’s group, she did a PhD in Optical Microscopy and an undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences, both at UCL. In addition to research, Siân is also passionate about creating open source teaching material, outreach work, and driving towards better diversity and representation in the microscopy community.
Viji Draviam
Viji M. Draviam is a Professor in Quantitative Cell and Molecular Biology at the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London and a Turing Research Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute. Her research interest is in the area of cell division and force generation, with a focus on the molecular basis for pathologies associated with cell division defects. To translate her group's research findings, Viji develops computational, molecular and optoelectronic tools with industry partners worldwide, Zeiss, Exscientia, MSD and Heptares. Viji leads the Center for Cell Dynamics, co-leads the AI for Drug Discovery UKRI/BBSRC-CTP and chairs the Research & Training Committee for BBSRC's flagship LIDo-DTP program.
She started her independent research as a Cancer Research UK Career Development Fellow at the University of Cambridge and a Senior Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. Draviam received a PhD from Trinity College, University of Cambridge and an MSc from the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore. Her post-doctoral work was with Peter Sorger at the Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School and MIT, while her PhD work was with Jon Pines at the Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge. She is a Nehru Scholar and fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust. She is the cofounder of CellCentives, an international clinical initiative to help eradicate Tuberculosis and a co-mentor of ENERGISE campaign that promotes STEM education among women students
Joëlle Goulding
Joëlle is a research fellow in advanced microscopy at the University of Nottingham within the Centre of Membrane Proteins and Receptors (COMPARE). COMPARE is a unique collaboration between the Universities of Birmingham and Nottingham. Following a PhD in Genetics at the University of Nottingham, she moved into the field of G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) pharmacology within the group of Professor Stephen Hill specialising in the development of imaging technologies to study the pharmacology of Class A GPCRs utilising fluorescent ligands and bioluminescent fusion proteins. This work has harboured an interest in studying endogenous receptor function and translating techniques for use within stem cell derived model systems. In 2017 Joëlle joined COMPARE and is working on the development of Fluorescent Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS) methodologies alongside Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer (BRET) imaging for GPCRs and tyrosine kinases.
Krishna Inavalli
Dr Krishna Inavalli obtained a PhD in Physics, where he developed a new method to generate structured light beams. During his first postdoctoral position at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, he developed novel microscopy techniques to image biological tissues and nano structures. In his second postdoctoral position at Interdisciplinary Institute for Neurosciences, Bordeaux, he combined STED with SMLM techniques in a single microscope to reveal morphological and molecular information of neuronal synapses. He contributed to the development of a new super-resolution microscopy technique ‘SUSHI’ to probe brain extracellular space. He also developed adaptive optics 3D_STED to investigate interactions between synaptic partners. Currently, Dr Inavalli is working as the Head of Microscopy at the Centre for Cancer Immunology, University of Southampton where he continues developing cutting edge technologies and applying them to the analysis of antibody-based cancer therapeutics.
Deirdre Kavanagh
Deirdre Kavanagh is a facility manager working at the Micron Biochemistry Imaging Facility at the University of Oxford. She has expertise in fluorescence microscopy with specialist interest in super-resolution, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and light-sheet technologies. She completed a PhD in Engineering and Physical Sciences and as a post-doctoral researcher she applied advanced microscopy to investigate the molecular machanisms underlying cell communication. At Micron, she supports a large user base via teaching, training and assisted imaging and analysis sessions. She is proactively involved in the organisation and development of microscopy networks, workshops, courses and public engagement.
Mike MacDonald
Mike is a Reader in Physics in the School of Medicine and School of Science and Engineering at the University of Dundee. Following a first degree in Laser Physics and Optoelectronics (1996) from the University of Strathclyde (2002) then an MSc and PhD in Physics from the University of Bern in Switzerland, Mike moved back to the UK to pursue research in optical manipulation and imaging at the University of St Andrews. He obtained an Advanced Research Fellowship from the EPSRC (2005) and moved to Dundee in 2007. Since arriving in Dundee Mike has applied his physics background to solving imaging and manipulation challenges in the life sciences and medicine, often through the development of new lightsheet microscopies for imaging plant roots and chicken embryos
Sebastian Munck
Sebastian started his career in Munich, where he studied Biology and later obtained a Ph.D at the BioImaging Center of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University. Later he worked as a Product Manager for Till Photonics, in Germany, between 2003 and 2004. After that he moved to Innsbruck as a Postdoc at the Medical University, from 2004 to 2006. He became Staff Scientist at the VIB in 2007 and in 2013 consequently independent group leader as Expert Technologist. In this function he also established the Leuven part of the VIB Bio Imaging Core and the Departmental imaging facility at the Center for Brain and Disease research. Sebastian was appointed Assistant Professor (part-time) at Faculty of Medicine KU Leuven in 2015.
Aleks Ponjavic
Aleks obtained a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London, where he applied novel fluorescence microscopy techniques to study confined fluids. He then moved to the Chemistry department in Cambridge, where he worked on new single-molecule and light-sheet microscopy tools for investigating the behaviour and organisation of membrane proteins in T cells. In 2020, Aleks starts his own lab as a University Academic Fellow at the Bragg Centre for Materials Research in Leeds. Here, his lab will focus on the application of high-speed fluorescence imaging to push beyond the temporal limits of single-molecule and super-resolution fluorescence microscopy.
Michael Schwertner
Michael has a background in physics and optics and a particular interest in microscopy, instrument design and image processing. He holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford, Dept. of Engineering Science, where he worked on confocal microscopy, adaptive optics and wavefront sensing.
At Linkam he has been involved with Cryo-correlative fluorescence / EM imaging (CLEM), cryo workflows and the design of some aspects of the related instruments. He has contributed to cryo-related workshops and courses in the past - including EMBO and Rothamsted Research Cryo Course.
Mike Shaw
Mike is a Principal Scientist at NPL where he leads the development of high-resolution fluorescence microscopy techniques for quantitative biological imaging, with particular interests in structured illumination and light sheet fluorescence microscopy. He works with a multidisciplinary team of scientists to apply these techniques to study a range of biological systems and processes including protein fibrillogenesis, intracellular delivery and the effects of therapeutic and toxic compounds on in vitro models. Mike is also a Principal Research Fellow in the Department of Computer Science at UCL where his work focuses on the application of computational imaging (light field and ptychographic microscopy) and image analysis in digital pathology. Mike holds an MSci degree in physics and a PhD in physics, both from Imperial College London, and is a Chartered Physicist.
Christian Wilms
Having studied Neurobiology, Cell Biology and Physical Chemistry in Frankfurt, Germany, I obtained my PhD from Leipzig University in 2007. Here, I applied FLIM to two-photon microscopy in Neuroscience. I moved to UCL for an extended post doc, using a range of microscopy technologies, with a strong focus on two-photon imaging and uncaging. In 2016 I followed my passion for technology and applications development and joined Scientifica Ltd, where I have been R&D Manager since 2018.
Tim Young
I qualified as a Biomedical Scientist in 2012 after completing my bachelor’s degree at The University of Essex but never entered practise. Instead I moved towards research; my first job was a technician with the MRC Epidemiology Unit, here I used a variety of methods to perform batch analysis of large cohorts of samples.
After this I moved towards cancer research and worked as a research assistant for Prof. Bruce Ponder in conjunction with the NHS Papworth Histology team. The research was directed towards the investigation of DNA repair dysfunction which can cause a genetic predisposition to lung cancer, particularly in smokers.
Then, in 2016, I joined the lab of Christian Frezza at Uni. Of Cambridge as part of the mass spectrometry team before becoming the lab manager and microscopist. When the lab moved out of the country I joined Prof. Paul Lehner’s team in CITIID and am continuing my RMS diploma here.
AGM
The 2023 Annual General Meeting of the Light Microscopy Section of the Royal Microscopical Society took place on Wednesday 5 July during mmc2023.
All the Society’s AGMs are free to attend for both members and non-members.