Microscopy & Microanalysis 2011 Meeting opens at the Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee, USA

The 2011 Microscopy & Microanalysis Meeting opened today at the Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee, USA,  featuring four days of symposia, workshops, tutorials and poster sessions highlighting the latest microscopical and microanalytical advances in fields such as nanotechnology, biological sciences, materials science, clinical diagnoses, and metallurgy.

Today, Monday 8 August, there was a plenary session featuring Dr Gene Ice, from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TN, who talked about X-ray micro/nanoprobe characterization using synchrotron sources, and  Professor Stefan Hell, from the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, who discussed superresolution light microscopy.

First, Nestor Zaluzec, President of MSA, welcomed the delegates to the meeting.

Gene Ice talked about 3rd and 4th generation X-ray sources such as free-electron X-ray lasers and synchrotron sources. Excitement in this field is driven by the source brillianence and their optics. The best resolution now posible is about 2 nm. The key advantage of X-ray is their penetration - greater depths than electrons.
In a broad ranging talk, Ice described three growth areas including X-ray miro- and nanotomograpy and X-ray fluorescence and diffraction microprobe.
4D-XRD microscopy of crystalline materials now produces 5 um resolution. Techniques include: absorption and phase contrast imaging; in situ imaging of changes in grain oritentation during stress; and mapping of local chemistry and structure.
There is a race to create small beams. A 1 nm X-ray probe may allow single atomic resolution deep within a structure.
Differential aperture X-ray microscopy (DAXM) of a silicon wafer during bending and heating can yield tensions in 3D.
Finally Ice talked about free electron lasers for femtosecond images before any damge.
Ice said: " XRM is being revolutionized by new sources and optics."
In an extraordinarly welcome turn of events, to the delight of the audience, Gene Ice ended his presentation by picking up a guitar and singing to the audience "The Ballad of X-Ray Microscopy".

Next, Professor Stefan Hell, gave us a superb insight into the secrets of superresolution microscopy. His overarching conclusion was that superresolution microscopy is "the on and off game". By turning off photon emission following excitaion it is possible to remove the "diffraction barrier". 

Stefan described the principles of stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy which requires no need for confocal optices or the processing of raw images.  

He gave examples from snare proteins, the clustering of synaptotagmin in synapses after exocytosis, and bruchpilot-C which organises the presynaptic active zone at the Drosophila neuromuscular junction.

New variants of STED are: T-Rex STED, a new technique that uses a super continuum laser; and Iso_STED that is like 4-pi microscopy for 3D imaging with <20 nm resolution, enabling one to see Tom20 inside a mitochondrion.

Superresolution microscopy is also very dynamic: 80 fps of 30 nm beads is possible; and better than 84 nm resolution is achievable inside dendritic spines of a living neuron.

Hell next turned to superresolution microscopy of magnetic resonance and optical magnetometry in neurons.

RESOLFT uses lower powers by using ground state depletion.A PALM STORM equivalent is SSDIM.

M&M2011 also honored the winners of the major societal awards for distinguished scientists, professional technical achievement as well as student and post-graduate scholars.

Full details of the meeting can be viewed at: http://www.microscopy.org/MandM/2011/program.cfm

Accompanying the conference was the largest microscopy exhibition in North America, featuring over 100 microscopy manufacturers and suppliers.

UPDATE: M&M2011 was the third best attended meeting ever with over 1600 delegates, 1000 exhibitors,  and 113 companies presenting at the EXPO.

Dr Julian Heath, Editor of Microscopy and Analysis