The Optical Imaging Association takes an active role in promoting microscopy education within the industry, with the goal of exposing many of the newest scientific applications and the solutions provided by the latest cutting edge integrated microscopy imaging techniques, to the scientific and educational communities. OPIA's commitment to education has encompassed the development of high level applications workshops and seminars American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting Special Interest Subgroup Meetings At the LimitsLight microscopy is a critical tool for cell biology. Its applications have extended from traditional fixed cell analysis to include the study of molecular interactions in living cells, isolated molecules, and applications for genome-wide screens. The speakers are pulled from the best labs in the world in order to provide a broad coverage of light microscopy at the limits. 2006 - At the Limits: Optical Methods for Single Molecules, Cells, & Organisms This session explored the latest applications of microscopy in whole animals, molecular interactions, and genome-wide screens. The speakers and their presentations were: Victoria Foe, University of Washington - Furrow Specification by Polymer Calvinism Gerald Donnert, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (Hell Lab) - STED Microscopy Manuel Théry, Institut Curie (Bornens Lab) - Normalizing Internal Cell Organization, a Prerequisite to High Throughput Image Acquisition and Averaging Antoine Van Oijen, Harvard Medical School - Watching Single Enzymes on DNA Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, National Institute of Child Health & Human Development/NIH - Deciphering Protein Localization, Turnover and Dynamics in Living Cells Larry Wade, California Institute of Technology (Fraser Lab) - Apertureless Near-Field Microscopy of Biomolecules Roger Tsien, University of California, San Diego - New Ways to Image Protein Age and Surface Exposure The program was organized by Jason Swedlow, University of Dundee, United Kingdom and Jennifer Waters, Harvard Medical School. 2005 -At the Limits: Optical Methods for Single Molecules, Cells, Whole Genomes, & Live Animals This session explored the latest applications of microscopy in whole animals, molecular interactions, and genome-wide screens. The speakers and their presentations were: John Murray, University of Pennsylvania Medical School, Optical Section Performance of Spot Scan, Disk Scan, and Wide-Field/Deconvolution Microscopes Terence Strick, Institute Jacques Monod, Watching Single Molecules Interact in Real-Time Ke Hu and Lin Ji, Scripps Research Institute, Correlational Total Internal Reflection Fluorescent Speckle Microscopy (TIR-FSM) Reveals Coupling of Focal Adhesion Molecules with the Actin Cytoskeleton in Cell Migration Alexey Khodjakov, Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, Laser Microsurgery in the GFP era-Problems and Solutions Jan Ellenberg, European Molecular Biology Laboratory Genome-Wide RNAi Screening by Time-Lapse Microscopy to Identify Mitotic Genes in Live Human Cells Ernst Stelzer, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Single Plane Illumination Microscopy (SPIM) in Quantitative Biology Josh Trachtenberg, University of California, Los Angeles, "Imaging Synaptic Plasticity in Vivo in the Mammalian Cortex" The program was organized by Jason Swedlow, University of Dundee, United Kingdom, Jennifer Waters, Harvard Medical School and John Murray, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine 2004 - Protein Interactions in Live Cells Studied by Optical Methods This workshop was aimed at researchers who use or would like to use modern optical microscopy methods to study protein interactions in living cells. Speakers covered the applications of these methods to a diverse set of cell biological issues including the dynamics of membrane proteins, intracellular trafficking of proteins, signal transduction, and cell motility. The speakers and their presentations were: Brian Herman, University of Texas at San Antonio, Comparison of Multiple Optical Techniques for Measurement of FRET Rich Day, University of Virginia, FRET Microscopy of Interacting Nuclear Proteins Steve Vogel, National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism/NIH, Quantitative Multiphoton Spectral Imaging for Detecting Resonance KURT Thorn, Harvard University, Measuring the Structure of the Yeast Septin Ring with FRET Microscopy Max Kummel, University of California, San Francisco, T Cell Receptor Dynamics During Immunological Synapse Formation Geri Kreiter, Weill School of Medicine, Cornell University, 2004 OPIA Young Scientist Award Winner The program was organized by David Piston, Vanderbilt University Microscopy & Microanalysis Pre-Meeting Congress M&M 2003 - 2nd International Symposium on Biophotonics Organized by Gerard Marriott, University of Wisconsin-Madison M&M 2001 - Imaging Life: from Cells to Whole Animals Organized by David W. Piston, University of Vanderbilt Glossary of Video Microscopy Terms A guide for use in selecting an electronic camera for light microscope based imaging. Compiled by members of the OPIA and edited by Thomas Lynch, Video Scope International Concepts in Imaging and Microscopy A series of articles on microscopy techniques by leading researchers published in The Biological Bulletin of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Articles and their authors were: Concepts in Imaging and Microscopy: Color Image Processing for Microscopy, Kenneth R. Castleman, Perceptive Scientific, Inc. Choosing Objective Lenses: The Importance of Numerical Aperture and Magnification in Digital Optical Microscopy, David W. Piston, Vanderbilt University Exploring Biological Structure and Function with Confocal Microscopy, Michael, Dailey, Glen Marrs, Jakob Satz, and Marc Waite, University of Iowa