The NDORMS Imaging Symposium and Awards, hosted by the Kennedy Institute, is annual event to explore cutting-edge imaging approaches and their application in research. This year’s symposium comprised a range of national and international speakers covering various technologies including lattice light sheet microscopy, intravital imaging and super resolution microscopy.
Advanced imaging is a key area for the Kennedy Institute as part of the Institute’s Cell Dynamics Platform led my Prof Michael Dustin. Mike says, “Support from the Kennedy Trust for Rheumatology Research for the Cell Dynamics Platform means that the Kennedy Institute can stay at the cutting-edge in microscopy technology. Part of making this happen is to get input from the best in the UK and the world, which we bring together through this symposium”.
Mike organised the event together with Drs Anjali Kusumbe, Marco Fritzsche and Volodymyr Nechyporuk-Zloy. “Marco did a great job on the theme for this year bringing leading experts in advanced microscopy from the US, UK and Oxfordshire. Anjali also organized a fantastic outreach event for 24 students the following day”, says Mike.
Anjali explains, “The previous NDORMS Imaging Symposium played a leading role in bringing experts from different disciplines to the NDORMS and wider Oxford imaging community. This 2nd event was marked by an addition of an outreach activity for 24 school students, where we exposed these young minds to advanced imaging of live cells in action and 3D imaging of tissue structures”
The Symposium also included an imaging competition to showcase imaging and microscopy research at both the Kennedy Institute and the Botnar Research Centre. The winning images were selected by microscopy experts from around Oxford and announced as:
- 1st Prize: Dr Stefan Balint (“Tulip” a fluorescent micrograph of a sperm cell)
- 2nd Prizes: Luciana Lippo (“The Big Nut” three-dimensional confocal image of a testicle) and Liliana Barbieri (“HeLa Hug” star shaped cells imaged at the TIRF-SIIM)
- 3rd Prize: James Felce (“Broken Heart” actually a breaking immunological synapse)
The symposium organisers would like to thank Olympus, Stratech, Zeiss, CoolLED Ltd, PerkinElmer, Atlantic Imaging, Aurox, Photonlines, Nikon, Andor, Photonic Solutions for their kind sponsorship of the event.