Welcome

SAVE THE DATE: The next MLMC is scheduled for July 9-20, 2012 at McGill University in Montreal.

We are pleased to announce that the first Montreal Light Microscopy (MLM) Course: Fundamentals and Frontiers was a success. 

Check out the MLMC facebook page for photos and more news.

Questions or comments: Please contact the MLMC organizing committee  at montreal.lmc@gmail.com .

Previous participants: If you have questions and/or are looking for talk handouts, please email montreal.lmc@gmail.com .

The First MLMC

The first Montreal Light Microscopy Course (MLMC) was held July 5-16, 2010 at McGill University. The course was organized by Dr. Claire M. Brown, director of the McGill University Imaging Facility, Dr. Pina Colarusso, scientific director of the Live Cell Imaging Facility at University of Calgary, and Dr. Paul Maddox, of the Department of Pathology and Cell Biology and the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) at Université de Montréal.

The course is being billed a great success with about 80 students taking part in the course. Students came from across Canada (Ottawa, Montreal, Saskatoon, Calgary, Halifax, Newfoundland), from the US (Vermont) and from Europe (Sweden). Over half of the students had the privilege of gaining extensive hands-on access to state-of-the-art microscopy equipment during the course.

During the introductory first week of the course (Fundamentals) students were exposed to the microscopy theory that is the foundation for all modern microscopes. Students were given many opportunities to put those theories into practice using some of more than 30 different systems that were available during the course. Many of these systems were transported to Montreal and installed onsite specifically for the MLMC.

During the more advanced second week of the course (Frontiers) students were able to gain hands-on access to state-of-the-art equipment, some of which is not even readily available on the market. This gave the students a peak into what technologies are at the frontier of light microscopy. Some highlights included imaging live specimens at speeds that were preciously not possible without the rapid developments in confocal, camera and filter technologies. New cameras and super-resolution techniques were also a highlight, producing images with resolutions approaching that of electron microscopes by using novel light microscopy techniques that can break the diffraction barrier.

Over thirty companies and approximately sixty representatives travelled from across North America and Europe in order to participate in the course. The highlight was a remote presentation from the Netherlands on deconvolution via Skype and TeamViewer software.

The pinnacle of the course was the keynote presentation by Dr. Sergio Grinstein from the Toronto Sick Kids Hospital. He so eloquently brought together a number of his research stories about cellular phagocytosis and intertwined the stories with results from the many light microscopy techniques he uses in his research. This truly demonstrated to the course attendees the power of light microscopy to effectively address complex research questions.

Thank you to everyone for your participation in making the first MLMC such a wonderful event We hope to see many of you and your colleagues again next time!

 FEEDBACK:

 “It was a learning experience that I will never forget.”         Joseph Clarke (PhD Student, Memorial University)

 “Thank you so much for this great program! I now know what can potentially be achieved with microscopy based approaches.“ Emmanuel Levy (Post Doctoral Fellow, Université de Montréal)

 “I must say that I have done a lot of courses in my days and this one was exceptional.  You all did a beautiful job.“ Michael Stanley, PhD, Senior Applications Scientist, Chroma Technologies Inc.

 “The small groups and small number of people allowed for individual tailoring.”  Anonymous

 “Great course! I learned a lot and I am very happy that I had attended it.” Anonymous