iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Liam Rooney

Dr Katherine Duncan @kateduncan.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

It has been lovely being back in Glasgow this week, giving a keynote talk at the Glasgow Computational Biology conference & an invited seminar at @uofgsii.bsky.social in the Hogwarts building 🏰(thank you @liam-rooney.bsky.social) -both such vibrant research communities & highly enjoyable discussions

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University of Glasgow School of Infection & Immunity @uofgsii.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

🆕 | @uofgsii.bsky.social's Dr @liam-rooney.bsky.social recently co-organised the UK’s largest and most comprehensive light microscopy training programme, SOMC 2025, bringing together experts and students from around the world for an advanced upskilling course. 👉 More: www.gla.ac.uk/schools/infe...

Participants and organisers from the 2025 Strathclyde Optical Microscopy Course (SOMC) stood together on steps in a modern building.

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Katherine Paine @katherinepaine.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

Great first week at #SOMC25, learning microscopy basics through lectures and practicals. We spent today collecting samples on the Isle of Cumbrae ready for week 2!

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

We might have a spare T-shirt or two if you’re down in Glasgow anytime soon 😅

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

Thank you so much to all of the great students, lecturers, demonstrators, and supportive vendors/sponsors - we wouldn’t have a course without you! And thank you to fellow organisers @shannanfoylan.bsky.social, @gailmcconnell.bsky.social and Brad Amos!

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

After 10 packed days of optical microscopy theory & practicals, #SOMC25 is over! 🌍 24 students from around the world 🧑‍🏫 19 internationally renowned lecturers 🧑‍🔧 16 supportive sponsors 🔬 14 hands-on advanced practical sessions 🏆 4 poster & image prizes 🪼 1 field trip to collect marine specimens

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Giuseppe Di Caprio @giudica.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Grateful for the chance to speak on computational microscopy and ML/AI in imaging. Thanks for having me! #SOMC25 #Microscopy #AI

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Our final session at #SOMC25 was a practical workshop on 3D printed lenses - learning how to rapidly fabricate small lenses and spin coat large lenses for optical instrumentation.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Our final lecture on Day 10 of #SOMC25 is on computational microscopy and ML/AI imaging/analysis approaches, delivered by @giudica.bsky.social (@strathbiomedeng.bsky.social).

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Our penultimate lecture on the final day of #SOMC25 is on developments and applications of Mesoscale Imaging from @gailmcconnell.bsky.social (@sipbs.bsky.social @unistrathclyde.bsky.social).

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

Our morning lecture at Day 9 of #SOMC25 is a double act on Raman imaging delivered by @karenfaulds.bsky.social and Will Tipping from @unistrathclyde.bsky.social.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Our second lecture on Day 8 of #SOMC25 was given by Joëlle Goulding (@uniofnottingham.bsky.social) on the theory and practicalities of Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Our first lecture of Day 8 at #SOMC25 is on FLIM and FRET imaging, from uses in basic science through to clinical diagnostics, delivered by Simon Poland (@kingscollegelondon.bsky.social).

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Day 7 Lecture 2 at #SOMC25 on Expansion Microscopy delivered by @shannanfoylan.bsky.social (@unistrathclyde.bsky.social), featuring some of her own @sulsa.bsky.social funded research on expansion microscopy for ‘footery’ samples.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

#SOMC25 Day 7 kicks off with @ralfmbauer.bsky.social (@unistrathclyde.bsky.social) giving a lecture on lightsheet microscopy.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Our Day 6 #SOMC25 afternoon lecture on single-molecule localisation microscopy was delivered by Susan Cox (@kingscollegelondon.bsky.social), followed by rotations around some advanced practicals.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

After our morning practical session at #SOMC25, we have our first lecture of the day delivered by @superresolusian.bsky.social (@kingscollegelondon.bsky.social) on STED and super-resolution microscopy methods.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

They got really cool and diverse stuff to image - a full 5 days of advanced system practicals next week, from lightsheet to single-molecule. ✨ Plus an image competition from the data generate from the specimens collected. Students seem to be enjoying it and, importantly, no one fell in the sea! 😅

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

Field trip day at #SOMC25 - we took a trip to the Isle of Cumbrae to collect specimens to image for the rest of the course. Tide pooling, beach combing, diatom netting, copepod fishing, crustacean hunting, and jelly junking. 🌊🪼🦀

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

Our final activity of #SOMC25 Day 4 is an image analysis lecture and workshop led by @beatricebo.bsky.social from the Cancer Research Scotland Institute.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

Our second lecture of Day 4 at #SOMC25 was delivered by me (@uofgsii.bsky.social) covering aspects of live cell and in vivo microscopy.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

Saturday morning and Day 4 of #SOMC25 starts with @lemgruber.bsky.social (@uofgmvls.bsky.social @uofgsii.bsky.social) telling us about the most widely used light microscopy methods; widefield epifluorescence and confocal laser scanning microscopy.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Day 3 of #SOMC25 is rounding off with our evening lecture from Bob Edkins (@unistrathclyde.bsky.social) on Fluorescence and Fluorescent Proteins. 🌟🔬

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

#SOMC25 Day 3 practical session of phase and DIC methods kicks off with a demonstration from Brad Amos before the students will spend time aligning systems for phase contrast and DIC, then imaging various aquatic and marine specimens.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

Next up at #SOMC25 is our second lecture of the day from @gailmcconnell.bsky.social (@unistrathclyde.bsky.social) on light source for optical microscopy. 💡🔬

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

#SOMC25 Day 3 kicks off with our morning lecture from Klaus Suhling (@kingscollegelondon.bsky.social) discussing detectors for optical imaging. 📷🔬

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Rounding off the day with Lecture 3 of #SOMC25 with Polarisation, Interference and Diffraction delivered by @muellenbroich.bsky.social, featuring sunglasses-adorned Brewster and a young(er) @ralfmbauer.bsky.social.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Day 1 #SOMC25 practical sessions demonstrating Abbe’s famous experiments followed by hands on alignment and Köhler illumination exercises using a variety of transillumination setups.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Day 2 Lecture 2 of #SOMC25 delivered by David McKee (@physicsstrath.bsky.social) on Ray and Wave Optics. 🌈🔬

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Agreed - enough to know what to use, when and why, but without the need to derive the confocal parameter on a napkin at the coffee break. 😅

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Day 2 of #SOMC25 kicks off with Lecture 1 from Brad Amos with an Overview of Optical Microscopy. Starting with the question: does the microscopist need to understand physics?

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

The Strathclyde Optical Micoscopy Course #SOMC25 kicked off today - 10 days of practical light microscopy training with 24 students from around the world! From fundamental & advanced lectures, to hands-on workshops with high end systems, & a field trip to the Isle of Cumbrae, it will be great! 🔬

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University of Glasgow School of Infection & Immunity @uofgsii.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

🆕 | @uofgsii.bsky.social Bacteriology Research Fellow Dr Liam Rooney (@liam-rooney.bsky.social) was recently recognised with the @microbiologysociety.org Infection Sciences Award, as well as election to the council of the @royalmicrosoc.bsky.social. 🔗 Read more: www.gla.ac.uk/schools/infe...

Dr Liam Rooney stood outdoors, down the hill from the Sir Gilbert Scott Building.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

🌟 Exciting News! 🌟 I’ve been awarded the Infection Science Award by @microbiologysociety.org in recognition of recent work using cross-scale imaging methods to study complex infection models. Thanks to the Microbiology Society, mentors, funders and collaborators for all their support! 🙏🏻🧫🔬🧪

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Izzy Jayasinghe @ijayas.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

This is hardly surprising, the message that scientists should “stay in their lane” is just nonsense. Shifting research focus takes courage and sometimes necessary as times change. One make take a hit in citation metrics, but the broader impact as well as career longevity can be profound. 🧪

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BioImagingUK @bioimaginguk.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

🔬𝐔𝐊 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨-𝐁𝐢𝐨𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐍𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 £𝟏.𝟖𝐌 from @ukri.org This will: -Democratise access to cutting-edge biological and biomedical imaging -Support 200+ researchers yearly -Boost open science Thanks to BBSRC and MRC for this major upgrade! 🚀 Congrats to the entire UK Node team 👏 Link in replies⬇️

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Last week, the Latin American Hub for Bioimaging Through Open Hardware kindly invited me to speak about our 3D printing work to researchers across Latin America. Great to see so much engagement & positivity about the work. Really great to hear about other research in the #OpenMicroscopy space. 🔬

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Lewis MacKenzie @lemackz.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Awesome that you can turn an Ender 3 3D printer into a microscope! This sort of thing would have been a big help during my PhD where I built a small surgical scope. Great work @niamh-deburca.bsky.social et al! Paper: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... HT: @liam-rooney.bsky.social

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Gail McConnell @gailmcconnell.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Improved contrast transmission stereomicroscopy using a low-cost 3D printed optical element! 🔬🧫🐟🧅 More details in our preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

By slotting this low-cost (£1.65) 3D printed optical element into the light path, we observed transparent biological structures that were undetected using traditional label-free stereomicroscopy - e.g., the growth annuli on a goldfish scale, or intracellular transport in live plant tissues. (4/5)

An magnified greyscale image of a dissociated goldfish scale acquired using a traditional transillumination setup (left) and acquired using a 3D printed biprism transillumination setup (right). A coloured dotted line in the same region of each image is shown to represent the location of the growth annuli which are mainly visible in the biprism setup.

(left) An image of an onion abaxial epidermis preparation acquired using a traditional transillumination setup. Magenta arrows indicated vaguely
discernible cell nuclei. (right) An image of an onion abaxial epidermis preparation acquired using a 3D printed biprism transillumination setup. The same nuclei indicated by the green arrows are revealed
due to the increased contrast.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Using our biprism transilluminator, we improved the homogeneity of illumination over the field, which in turn increased contrast and image quality. (3/5)

Images of a 2 mm grid marked with a single ink spot are
presented with separate images of the left (top) and right (bottom) optical axes in a standard transillumination stereomicroscope setup. A false-coloured composite image of the left (green) and right (magenta) optical axes is presented, where ‘white’ signal corresponds to areas of homogeneous illumination.

The left hand images are presented in greyscale and have two bright spots on the left and aright of the grid pattern, respectively. The right hand image is a merge of the two left images, false coloured in green and magenta, providing an image with a bright green spot on the left and bright magenta spot on the right of the grid pattern.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

We 3D printed a bespoke element that integrated a plano-convex lens & a biprism. This collected & collimated light, which converged at the specimen plane and transmitted along the detection axes, improving the inefficient transillumination design of conventional stereomicroscopes. (2/5)

An image of the 3D printed biprism element placed on a black holder is shown on the left, with a simplified schematic on the right of the transmission path of a Greenough-type stereomicroscope with a biprism transilluminator.

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

🚨New pre-print out now!🚨 We 3D printed a large optical element that enhanced the illumination, contrast & image quality in transmission stereomicroscopy. This simple addition to the illumination path lets us detect refractive structures & dynamics unobserved by conventional stereomicroscopy. (1/5)

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Liam Rooney @liam-rooney.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Had a fantastic week at #Biofilms11 in sunny Cardiff! Great to catch up and meet so many folks and see all the amazing biofilm research on show. Plus a life size 3D printed mammoth! Thanks for a great conference @ukbiofilms.bsky.social!

Me, standing on stage in front of a projection of a title slide from my talk titled ‘from architecture to complex infections: how multi-modal cross-scale imaging changes how we view biofilms’

A picture of the National Museum of Cardiff in the evening sun, with tree branch overhanging the top of the image.

A picture of 4 people standing in front of a mammoth skeleton with colourful lighting in the background

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Kevin Whitley @kevindwhitley.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Postdoc position available! This is a 2-year post funded by the Academy of Medical Sciences. You'll be based in the Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology here in Newcastle, using super-resolution microscopy to look at the bacterial cell wall. 🔬🦠 Please re-post 🙏 www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMY885/r...

jobs.ac.uk

Research Assistant/Associate - Mapping the Bacterial Cell Wall with Super-resolution Microscopy at Newcastle University

Apply for the Research Assistant/Associate - Mapping the Bacterial Cell Wall with Super-resolution Microscopy role on jobs.ac.uk, the top job board for academic positions in higher education. View det...

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