🔬🔦In this Imaging spotlight, Kevin Dean @kevin-dean.bsky.social and team tell us about their motivation for designing Altair-LSFM, describe its key features, how to setup and use the system and their planned developments.
focalplane.biologists.com/2026/03/09/i...
Photon unlimited contrast. Axially swept light-sheet microscopy using scattering and fluorescence contrast mechanisms. www.spiedigitallibrary.org/conference-p...
I’ve been experimenting with AI agents for coding, and honestly: anyone calling it “AI slop” hasn’t really dabbled with the drug. Give these things the right tools and they absolutely shine. Have an idea? Build it.
Altair-LSFM – new high-resolution, open-source, sample-scanning approach to light-sheet fluorescence microscopy for sub-cellular imaging
📹 @john-haug.bsky.social et al @kevin-dean.bsky.social lab
UT Southwestern Medical Center in @elife.bsky.social
➡️ bpod.org.uk/archive/2026... with
John Ankers
We’re excited to announce the next Fluorescent Proteins & Biological Sensors conference! Abstract submissions are now open—hope to see you there.
www.janelia.org/you-janelia/...
Today’s bounty
Thank you!
Google is guilty too. Giving them up? 😂
In @elife.bsky.social: A high-resolution, easy-to-build light-sheet microscope for subcellular imaging doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
Hi George, thank you very much for the compliment and for the careful read. Thanks to you, we will be updating our manuscript so that the TEMED concentration is 05%... 🫠
We have two funded postdoctoral positions available. Topics encompass:
-Next gen light-sheet fluorescence microscopy instrumentation
-Structured illumination microscopy and other approaches to extend the resolution limit.
-Nonlinear microscopy combined with adaptive optics / phase conjugation
You know a grant is due shortly when your children stop sleeping through the night, and school gets closed for multiple days.
DNA PAINT in a drosophila embryo. I'm impressed. www.cell.com/biophysj/ful...
Navigate can now run entirely with ASI's Tiger Controller, eliminating the NI data acquisition board altogether, simplifying the optoelectronics, and providing deterministic frame-to-frame operation. Documentation coming soon... github.com/TheDeanLab/n...
My favorite conferences are always at Janelia. I cannot recommend enough... www.janelia.org/you-janelia/...
Oh yeah, we do pay these tariffs...
Now out in @natcomms.nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41...! The latest GitHub commits/Colab notebooks enable simulation with 3D sequences.
High-res 3D imaging in patient samples + xenografts shows bleb-associated survival signaling is enriched in poorly adherent melanoma cells in vivo. Pharmacologic disruption reduces metastatic burden. @muthrnaturzson.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
My understanding is that plunge freezing really becomes necessary as you approach multicellular scales, and can provide vitreous ice up to ~100-150 microns. I don't think we had problems, but like you said, maybe we can't see it? Two authors are cryo-EM experts, and plunge freezing was recommended.
A new book, just out! Includes chapters from Dodt, Ueda, Kubitscheck, Gao, @adamkglaser.bsky.social, Silvestri, and yours truly!
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
For comparison, sections derived from FFPE blocks do fail eventually when subjected to oxidative photobleaching, and it depends strongly on the tissue type, mechanical properties, etc.
We never tried photobleaching on expanded cells. Redox worked beautifully the first try. Of course, requires disulfide bonds in the antibodies….
We hypothesized that oxidative photobleaching is much harder on the specimen, and will ultimately lead to loss of epitopes or other failure modes, such as the specimen falling apart. We thought redox would be much gentler and enable a greater number of rounds, and we never found the limit.
The cryo cyclical multiplexing expansion microscopy (Cy-ExM) preprint from
@seweryn-galecki.bsky.social , @kevin-dean.bsky.social et al is online.
20 targets across an entire cell. Mr. Snouty also joined the fun.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Introducing Cyclically Multiplexed Expansion Microscopy (Cy-ExM): a workflow for 3D nanoscale, high-plex imaging in whole cells. Cryo-preserved ultrastructure + iterative labeling + expansion microscopy → 20 targets in one dataset with ~70 nm lateral resolution.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Great team effort, with @retof.bsky.social and more! Most imaging performed with with a snouty equipped Oblique Plane Microscope. Rendering done in @napari.org.
20-plex volumetric super-resolution imaging of cellular ultrastructure. Preprint, led by @seweryn-galecki.bsky.social, dropping soon.
In @elife.bsky.social: Altair-LSFM: A High-Resolution, Easy-to-Build Light-Sheet Microscope for Sub-Cellular Imaging doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
