Lightfest! Advanced Light Microscopy Symposium at CNSI

Join us for the second annual Lightfest! Advanced Light Microscopy Symposium at CNSI. A celebration of UNESCO’s International Day of Light, this event will be held from May 15 – 17, in honor of Theodore Maiman, who fired the first laser right here in southern California on May 16th, 1960.

This symposium will feature invited talks from a selection of light microscopy users, poster presentations and awards, an image contest, and vendor booths. This event is free and open to anyone, we hope to see you there!

Lightfest attendees can register here: https://formfacade.com/public/111737165731248679447/all/form/1FAIpQLSeUa...

About the keynote speaker:

Opening Keynote: Adding Dimensions to Intravital Imaging to Better Eavesdrop on Biology
Scott E. Fraser, PhD
University of Southern California
Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Imaging of living specimens can animate the wealth of high-throughput molecular data to better understand complex events ranging from embryonic development to disease processes. We are advancing this approach despite the unavoidable tradeoffs – between spatial & temporal resolution, field of view, limited photon budget – by constructing faster and more efficient light sheet and laser-scanning microscopes that maintain subcellular resolution.

Our two-photon light-sheet microscope combines the deep penetration of two-photon microscopy and the speed of light sheet microscopy to generate images with more than 10x improved imaging speed & sensitivity. Better engineering of the detection objective’s point-spread-function improves this another 3-fold. Two-photon excitation light is far less scattered, permitting subcellular resolution to be maintained better than conventional light sheet microscopes, resulting in 4D (3D over time) cell and molecular imaging with sufficient speed and resolution to unambiguous trace cell lineages, movements and signals in intact systems.

To increase the 5th Dimension (# of simultaneous labels), we are refining new multispectral image analysis tools that exceed the performance of our previous work on Linear Unmixing by orders of magnitude in speed, error propagation and accuracy. Novel denoising strategies using machine learning permit imaging at far lower light levels, yielding rapid and unambiguous analyses without perturbing even fragile multiplex-labeled specimens.

Parallel refinements in label-free approaches extend imaging to patient-derived tissues and even human subjects. The low concentrations of these intrinsic labels required us to refine fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM), and combine it with multispectral and advanced denoising tools, to perform intravital imaging in such challenging settings.

Combined, these imaging and analysis tools offer the multi-dimensional imaging required to follow key events in intact systems as they take place, and allow us to use noise and variance as experimental tools rather than experimental limitations.

Schedule:

DAY 1
Wednesday 5/15 - CNSI Lobby & Auditorium

10:00-1:00 Vendor Setup
12:30-1:00
Registration e Check-In
1:00-2:00
Welcome & Introduction to UNESCO's International Day of Light
2:00-3:00
Session 1: Art in Science
3:00-3:30
Art Sci Laser Harp Performance
3:30-4:30
Session 2: KEYNOTE SPEAKER
4:30-6:00
Networking Reception
DAY 2
Thursday 5/16 - CNSI Lobby e Auditorium
9:00-9:30
Breakfast at Vendor Booths
9:30-10:45
Session 3: Novel Fluorescent Probes & Nanoparticles

10:45-11:00 Coffee at Vendor Booths

11:00-12:15 Session 4: Label-free Imaging
12:15-1:15
Lunch at Vendor Booths
1:15-2:30
Session 5: Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy (FLIM)
2:30-2:45
Coffee at Vendor Booths
2:45-4:00
Session 6: Fast Volumetric Imaging using Lightsheet
4:00-5:00
Poster Session
5:00-6:15
Session 7: Deep Tissue Imaging
6:15-7:30
Networking Reception
DAY 3
Friday 5/17 - CNSI 5 Floor Presentation Space
9:00-10:00
Breakfast er Learn: Vendor Slam Talks
10:00-11:15
Session 8: Microscopy Technique Development
11:15-1:30
Vendor Lab Demo Fair
1:30-2:00
Closing Remarks & Awards for Image Contest & Poster Prize

More info: https://cnsi.ucla.edu/event/lightfest-advanced-light-microscopy-symposiu...