EMCCD Symposium
The Second International EMCCD Symposium took place on 14-16 April 2005. The week
saw in excess of 80 delegates from ten countries attending three days of talks,
workshops, lectures and social events in Connecticut, US. The theme of the symposium
was advancing low light experiments and applications using EMCCD technology.
The symposium took place in conjunction with
Yale School of Medicine
and on Friday the symposium moved from the Water's Edge resort in Westbrook up to
Yale for practical workshops and plenary lectures, followed by a Wine and Cheese
reception. Yale School of Medicine faculty members and the Connecticut Microscopy
Society attended the latter.
There appeared to be a lot of cross-pollination from these scientists who were all
sharing the same problem of working in light starved conditions. The use of EMCCD
technology addresses a lot of these problems and the talks centred around how people
are using these cameras in their applications to discover new ways of seeing.
Initial
feedback
from attendees was that the event was a huge success. There was a high quality of
speakers from a broad range of backgrounds from single molecule detection, live
cell imaging, astronomy,spectroscopy and X-Ray. The quality of talks was enhanced
by the social environment and surroundings, which made for a lot of opportunities
to share information and debate.
Thursday saw a range of talks on Low Light Microscopy and Biophysics.
Speakers
included Professor Daniel Axelrod, from University of Michigan, a recognised guru
in TIRF techniques, who gave a plenary address on “Enhanced FRET based on Polarization”.
The chairs for the morning and afternoon sessions were Professor Axelrod and Dr.
Diez from Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics.
On
Friday morning the focus switched to a series of talks on Physics & Chemistry
EMCCD applications, including Spectroscopy, X-Ray and Adaptive Optics. After lunch
the group headed down to Yale School of Medicine for a series of practical parallel
workshops with offerings from
Andor Technology
(who demonstrated their new Spectroscopy EMCCD, the Andor Newton as well as a confocal
set-up with the Andor iXon and iQ software), Optical Insights, Indec Biosystems
and also got a chance to see Dr. Derek Toomre's Cinema lab at Yale School of Medicine.
Two plenary lectures followed given by Prof. Jim Pawley, Department of Zoology,
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI and Dr. Michael Levene, Dept of Biomedical Engineering,
Yale University. Jim's talk was titled “What's up with EMCCD?" and Michael's talk
was on “Zero mode waveguides for single molecule DNA sequencing”.
The final day Saturday saw presentations from Andor Technology, e2v, Optical Insights,
Indec Biosystems and Till Photonics. This was followed by a focus group session
on “The Future of EMCCD technology” to discuss, review, and explore all aspects
of low light imaging and the future of EMCCD technology.
Overall delegates heard from 24 speakers over the three days. Mixed in were several
social activities including a Magical Irish evening, a dinner at Mory's (a private
dining club at Yale), Golf at Yale's own course and a cultural tour of New Haven.
Special thanks go out to:
-
All of the speakers and attendees for their time and patience
-
Dr. Derek Toomre and Mari Kawaguchi from Yale School of Medicine
-
Jordan Yelinek from the Connecticut Microscopy Society
-
e2v and all other corporate supporters
-
Everyone at Andor Technology who helped make the event work.
Feedback
Many thanks to Andor for inviting me and putting on such a great Symposium.
Thanks again for giving me the possibility to attend (and present at) your workshop
last week. It was a great meeting, not only for all the wonderful social events
- but also for the science involved. The organization of the workshop was superb!
I would like to express my sincere thanks to Andor for the opportunity to participate
in the impressive EMCCD Symposium during the last few days at Waters Edge, Connecticut,
not of course forgetting the very generous hospitality and truly enjoyable social
gatherings. I really do consider it a privilege to have had the chance to contribute
to such a first rate scientific occasion.
Downloads
Download some of the
presentations
from the speakers at the symposium.