Microscopy has been described as being “the eyes of science”, and the importance of microscopy is underlined by the unprecedented levels of capital investment and research activity associated with microscopy.
This open event is designed to highlight the latest frontiers in microscopy through a series of short presentations from field leaders, followed by a reception to allow further discussion and networking.

The Royal Microscopical Society Annual General Meeting as well as the AGMs for the Outreach & Education, Electron Microscopy and Engineering & Physical Sciences Committees will be held on the morning of Friday 30^th September, prior to the meeting.

Registration for this event has now closed.

Provisional Programme

Invited Speakers

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  Prof Barbara Bain

  Imperial College
  Barbara J. Bain Professor of Diagnostic Haematology, Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, London and Honorary Consultant Haematologist, St Mary’s Hospital, London. Long term interest in diagnostic haematology including haematological morphology and the diagnosis of haematological neoplasms, particularly eosinophilic leukaemias and the myelodysplastic syndromes. Author or co-author of a number of books on various aspects of diagnostic haematology. Member of the International Working Group on Morphology of MDS (IWGM-MDS). Member of the myeloid writing group for the WHO 2008 Classification of Tumours of Haematopoietic and Lymphoid Tissues.

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  Prof Paul Midgley Hon FRMS

  Cambridge University
  Paul Midgley is Professor of Materials Science and Director of the Electron Microscopy Facility. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Professorial Fellow at Peterhouse. Before moving to Cambridge in 1997, he held two Research Fellowships in the H.H. Wills Physics Laboratory at the University of Bristol, the first funded by The Royal Commission for The Exhibition of 1851 and the second by The Royal Society. He has studied a wide variety of materials by electron microscopy and developed a number of novel electron microscopy techniques. His recent research has concentrated on electron tomography, electron holography, energy filtered TEM and precession electron diffraction.

   

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  Prof Mervyn Miles

  University of Bristol
  Mervyn Miles is a physicist distinguished for his groundbreaking new techniques in scanning-probe microscopy — the use of microscopes with probes attached for imaging the surface of an object. His work allows the viewing of biological systems in much greater detail than before, including molecules such as body fats and DNA.His outstanding advancements comprise developing techniques for imaging at more than 100 images per second, sensing the surface of delicate specimens through a thin layer of water to prevent damaging contact, and bathing the microscope probe in liquid to enhance the image and minimise damage to the specimen.

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  Prof Peter Nellist

  University of Oxford
  Pete Nellist is a Professor in the Department of Materials, and a Tutorial Fellow at Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford. He leads a research group that focuses on the applications and development of high-resolution electron microscope techniques, in particular scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), including atomic resolution Z-contrast imaging, ptychography, electron energy-loss and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and applications of spherical aberration correctors. Pete gained his PhD from the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. Since then he has worked in academia and in the commercial world in the UK, USA and Republic of Ireland. In 2007 he was awarded the Burton Medal by the Microscopy Society of America for exceptional contributions to microscopy, and in 2013 the Ernst Ruska Prize of the German Microscopy Society.  In addition to being Vice-President of the Royal Microscopical Society he is also a Board Member of the European Microscopy Society.

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  Professor Michelle Peckham

  Executive Honorary Secretary

  University of Leeds
  Michelle is Professor of Cell Biology in the Faculty of Biological Sciences. She obtained a BA in Physiology of Organisms at the University of York, and a PhD in Physiology at University College London. She moved to King's College London, and started to use a specialised form of light microscopy (birefringence) to investigate muscle crossbridge orientation. She then worked at UCSF, San Francisco for a year, where she used fluorescence polarisation to investigate muscle crossbridges. She moved back to the UK, to the University of York, to work on insect flight muscle. In 1990 she was awarded a Royal Society University Research fellowship, based at King's College London, and began working on the cell and molecular biology of muscle development, and started to use live cell imaging to investigate muscle cell behaviour in cultured cells, and confocal microscopy to investigate their cytoskeleton. She collaborated with Graham Dunn to use Digitally Recorded Interference Microscopy with Automatic Phase Shifting (DRIMAPS) to investigate cell crawling behaviour. She moved to Leeds in 1997 as a Lecturer, and has continued to use a wide range of both light and electron microscopy approaches to investigate the molecular motors and the cytoskeleton.

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  Prof Sir John Pethica FRS

  Professor of Materials Science, Trinity College, Dublin. Chief Scientific Advisor at the UK's National Physical Laboratory. Visiting Professor at Oxford University.

  Professor Sir John Pethica graduated from the University of Cambridge with a PhD in physics. He was a scientist at Brown Boveri in Switzerland, followed by a Fellowship at Cambridge University. He was appointed Lecturer, then Professor of Materials Science at the University of Oxford, from where he went to Trinity College, Dublin in 2001. He continues his connection with Oxford through a Visiting Professorship.

  John's research is in the fields of surfaces, thin films, atomic- and nano-scale structures, and nanomechanics. He is the originator of novel AFM, STM and nano-indentation techniques. His current research is on nanomechanics and the manipulation and control of matter at the atomic and molecular scale, with application to novel devices and biological structures.

Sponsors

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  FEI

  See beyond with FEI's leading edge SEM, TEM, ESEM and DualBeam™ solutions. Our 60 year history of pushing the boundaries of microscope innovation has resulted in instruments delivering sub-nm SEM and sub-Å TEM resolution. Whatever your application in materials or life sciences, FEI delivers the highest performance solution, and puts you at the center of a global community of leading researchers and scientists.

  Find out more about FEI
  fei.com

Venue

The Geological Society
Burlington House
Piccadilly
London W1J 0BG