Updates from the group (October 2022)

By -

It was a busy period during June-October this year!

Below are some important updates about our team:

- Together with prof. Sarah Vergult, we received a funding by the Special Research Fund (BOF) to start an interdisciplinary research project on imaging of neural organoids 'IMAGIBRAINDD'. The team will grow with at least one new PhD student. More details to follow.

- Have you ever heard about FLIMagin3D? Together with Prof. Michael Monaghan (Trinity College Dublin) and a number of experts across EU and UK we have secured funding for a new doctoral training network (MSCA) aiming at expanding & consolidating training in biosensors, modelling, tissue models, hardware and software for 3D FLIM. This project will start from 1-Jan-2023 and soon we will be hiring PhD students. Twitter page for new updates.

- New microscope(!) Thanks to FWO (medium infrastructure call 2021) and support from ~ 25 other enthusiastic colleagues from UGent and VIB, soon we will have confocal white light laser-based FLIM microscope (Stellaris 8 Falcon, Leica) to boost the research of our team, UGent, UZ Gent and international collaborations. From ~ Dec 2022 this device will be available for users via Ghent Light Microscopy Core (GLiM). The official launch ceremony and demo-sessions will be announced in the coming weeks.

- New industrial collaboration. We started a collaborative project with Cell Cell Bio, new startup located in Merelbeke, Belgium. This joint research line is expected to help with improving tissue oxygenation in 3D constructs, hydrogels and bioprints... hopefully in 1-2 years time. 

- We spent some time working on a review article addressing the problem of assessing cell death and viability in 3D tissue models. This article has been published in Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology journal. Congratulations to Angela and Irina for their Herculean efforts!

- Conferences: After the exciting session about 3D imaging of spheroids and organoids (Dr. Irina Okkelman as invited speaker, Prof. Dmitriev as session co-organiser and co-chair) in Krakow (June 2022), Prof. Dmitriev also spoke at the annual German society for cytometry meeting (DGfZ 2022) in Berlin: https://dgfz2022.de/speaker/imaging-session/

Our next conference is CellBio 2022 in December, Washington DC. Prof. Dmitriev and A. Debruyne will present posters about some new work in progress. Special thanks to ASCB-EMBO and FWO travel awards!

We also had some fun during the summer!





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Affordable microscopy of spheroid oxygenation (video protocol)

By -
Image
Our lab has published a new protocol paper, this time with the video, in the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE)! In this research method paper, we report the use of red/ near-infrared emitting biocompatible nanosensors to monitor oxygenation of the live multicellular spheroids (made of one or more cell types), together with the tracers of cell death. While this methodology is typically available only for users with 'high-end' PLIM microscopes and alike, we show that using of ratiometric readout with the red and near infrared emitting fluorescent nanosensors makes this possible on broadly available 'widefield' fluorescence microscope platforms. This method helps comparing oxygenation of spheroids, assessing this in a long-term and kinetic assays, comparing their variability and viability, essential in follow-up 3D printing applications. This is the first article in our collection ' Quantitative live cell imaging of 3D models' , guest-edited together with
Read more

JoVE Methods collection: Quantitative live cell imaging of 3D models

By -
Image
Together with Prof. Margarida Barroso (Albany Medical College), we guest edit a collection of video protocols, hosted by the Journal of Visualised Experiments ( JoVE ), and  dedicated to the quantitative live cell imaging in 3D .  We expect bringing together some leaders and innovators in various aspects of the quantitative live fluorescence microscopies applied to ex vivo animal models, organoids and 3D engineered tissue blocks. The collection, which just has been started, can be assessed here .
Read more