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The Edinburgh Super-resolution Imaging Consortium (ESRIC) annual summer school has been held at Heriot-Watt and the University of Edinburgh. ESRIC, its research, outreach and educational programmes have become internationally acclaimed over recent years and this year's summer school was sponsored by the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Microscopical Society as well as by all the major microscope manufacturers in the world.
These companies also arrived at the summer school with all their most advanced super-resolution imaging systems, amounting to more than £10 million worth of equipment offering hands-on experience. Delegates travelled from all over the world, from as far afield as New Zealand, North and South America and all over Europe and Scandinavia, to learn from the highest profile international researchers in the field.
Viewing molecules in living samples
Super-resolution imaging has revolutionised cell biology in recent years, allowing biologists to finally 'see' down to the nanoscale, single molecule level inside living samples. ESRIC is an MRC-supported (£2M) programme that aims to place these techniques and expertise in the hands of as wide and audience as possible, as well as conducting cutting-edge research developing new techniques and driving biology discovery.
In only a short period of time Heriot-Watt has become a world-leading centre of excellence in these areas, in part due to the excellent inter-disciplinary working that is enabled here. Professor Rory Duncan, Head of IB3 and ESRIC PI, said, “The over-subscription of our summer-school, with delegates willing to travel around the globe to learn here, reinforces our leading position in inter-disciplinary research in the life science arena”.