Senior biological courses at wide-field fluorescence and Confocal microscopy tech, named after SIBS - UC Berkeley, were held from Oct.29th to Nov.1st at our institute by the National Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics SIBS-UC Berkerley Center of Molecular Life Sciences. 44 technicians and students from 19 research institutes and universities enrolled in the training.

Training courses were designed to help scientific research workers to be familiar with the confocal microscopy principle and use confocal microscopy to solve technical problems encountered. The courses also introduced the advanced applications related to equipment efficiency of confocal microscopy and provided strong technical suppose to research in biological sciences.

 The training courses specially invited Dr. Steven E. Ruzin, the Director of the Biological Imaging Technology Center in University of California (Berkeley), as main advisor. Dr. Ruzin has been worked in biological imaging technology for 18 years, he has great experiences and skills in the field of microscopy, and is the author of the book h;Plant Microtechnique and Microscopyh;. In addition, the organizer also invited Dr. Denise Schichnes, an expert of the Biological Imaging Center in University of California (Berkeley), to assist in the course.

Our deputy director Dr. Xue Hong-wei, director of the National Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, gave a speech on the holding of training courses. First, he expressed his thanks to Steven and other well-known experts for teaching in the training courses. He also expressed his warm welcome to the person who enrolled in the courses, as well as thanks to organizer and Leica prototype and Olympus for suppose the training courses.

In his speech, he said that laser scanning confocal microscopy is more widely used in cell biology and other fields. He hoped that with this confocal training platform, we could apply what we have learned to our institutes or universities. By using of the Confocal, we would do our scientific research better.

The training courses include fluorescence microscopy and digital imaging, confocal microscopy and application of the principle, fluorescence bleaching recovery, fluorescence resonance energy transfer, linear decomposition, clear treatment and other senior fluorescence microscopy.

Three big prototype model operations including a Zeiss LS510 meta, Leica SP5 and Olympus FV1000 were provided to practice. Some confocal related engineers worked as tutors. Trainees were very active in question with the two senior professors during the entire training.