Cell Bio 2012 event brims with biophotonics innovations

Seemingly well-timed in the midst of the 2012 holiday season, the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB)'s annual meeting, held December 15-19, 2012, in San Francisco, CA, this year, had a lot to give to its some-7,000 attendees through its exhibition, symposia, and poster presentations. While not solely a bio-optics and biophotonics event, the innovations for these markets present on the exhibit floor, etc., didn't disappoint.

A handful of companies had chosen ASCB as their venue to unveil some of their latest innovations in this space. Here are a couple of note:

At Bio-Rad Laboratories' (Hercules, CA) booth, the company showed its S3 Cell Sorter, "the first truly walk-up automated cell sorter available," they claim, as scientists need minimal training to operate it. Equipped with one or two lasers and up to four fluorescence detectors, the benchtop system has fully enclosed fluidics and temperature control in a 2.3 x 2.1 x 2.1 ft footprint. What's more, the system is ready to sort samples in less than 30 minutes for high-throughput applications such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and fluorescent cell imaging.

Scientific instrumentation maker FEI (Hillsboro, OR) launched a light/electron microscopy combo that enables scientists to see structural and functional relationships at various resolutions in their samples with unprecedented detail, says the company. The iCorr fluorescence microscope module, which is available either as an integrated component on the company's Tecnai transmission electron microscopes or as as a retrofitted module on already installed Tecnai platforms, delivers correlative results in minutes rather than hours or days, thanks to a white-light LED source and image acquisition at 10 fps.

For BioOptics World's full report on the event, please stay tuned for the January/February 2013 issue. Until then, have a wonderful New Year!

A "how to" in probe selection by Mike Davidson

What are you wondering about fluorescent probes in advanced microscopy applications? Tomorrow you'll have the chance to ask an expert in the field.

Join me and Mike Davidson, who heads the optical microscopy department of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University, for an interactive webcast at 3pm ET. Mike will be advising us How to Choose Probes for Super-Resolution Microscopy (http://www.bioopticsworld.com/webcasts/2011/11/probes-for-super-resolution-microscopy.html), and his presentation will conclude with a Q&A session.

In recent years, life scientists have seen a dramatic advances in tools for fluorescent microscopy - both in terms of probes and instruments. The changes have enabled work previously only dreamed of: examination of molecular interactions with localization specificity, at resolutions approaching an order of magnitude beneath the classical diffraction limit.

Come hear Davidson, a renowned microscopist, discuss the various modes of super-resolution imaging and advances in probe development for each one - and bring your questions. Hope to see you there.