iBiology Microscopy Course
Light microscopy has become one of the most useful tools in the life sciences. Following the traditions of great courses on light microscopy, such as those offered by the Marine Biological Laboratory, EMBO, and the NCBS in Bangalore, this free online comprehensive course begins with the basics of optics, proceeds through transmitted light microscopy, covers the various methods of imaging fluorescent samples, describes how cameras work and image processing, and concludes with some of the latest advances in light microscopy. In addition to lectures, they also provide labs (filmed at a microscope) and short tips, so as to cover pragmatics of how to use microscopes. Assessments are provided for each lecture. Enjoy learning microscopy!
Announcement: PTMs in Cell Signaling conference
Excellent meeting coming up
Two years ago, I was one of the organizers of the 2nd Copenhagen Bioscience Conference entitled PTMs in Cell Signaling. I think it is fair to describe it as a highly successful meeting, and it is my great pleasure to announce that we will be organizing a second meeting on the topic September 14-18, 2014.
My co-chairs Jeremy Austin Daniel, Michael Lund Nielsen, and Amilcar Flores Morales have managed to put together the following excellent lineup of invited speakers:
Alfonso Valencia, Chris Sander, David Komander, Gary Nolan, Genevieve Almouzni, Guillermo Montoya, Hanno Steen, Henrik Daub, John Blenis, John Diffley, John Tainer, Karolin Luger, Marcus Bantscheff, Margaret Goodell, Matthias Mann, Michael Yaffe, Natalie Ahn, Pedro Beltrao, Stephen Elledge, Tanya Paull, Tony Hunter, Yang Shi, Yehudit Bergman, and Yosef Shiloh.
All conference expenses are covered, which means that there will be no registration fee and no expenses for…
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The VizbiPlus Challenge: Call for Entries
The VizbiPlus Challenge: Call for Entries
Want to win a very cool Wacom Cintiq 13HD!
Got some amazing Science Artwork you want to show off?
Then why not enter the VizbiPlus Challenge
Amazing Video “Cancer is Not One Disease”
Awesome Video on cancer with some very cool animations !
Here is an amazing video put together by the very talented Kate Patterson here at the Garvan. We were very lucky to be able to provide some technical advice for the video which was a great honour.
A brief introduction to Mitosis

Great intro into Mitosis
Here is a slide that I made and often use at the beginning of my talks to briefly explain what mitosis is. The images are taken from a live cell that we have labelled with fluorescent probes to highlight the DNA (red) and microtubules (green).
Enjoy !
A brief Intro to Greatwall Kinase…The King of Mitosis
Nice intro into this exciting new gene !
Our favourite protein in the lab is Greatwall kinase. It was first discovered in 2004 to be critical for cell division in fruit flies (1,2) . The trail then went cold for a few years as to its exact function, but in 2009, while I was working as a post-doc in France, I was fortunate enough to be in the lab that uncovered its exciting mode of action. For cells to get into mitosis they must activate a key protein called cyclin dependent kinase 1 (Cdk1). I like to think of this as the accelerator in a car. So to get moving cells push on the gas!
And conversely to get out of mitosis you need to hit the brakes. These brakes are the phosphatases which reverse the action of kinases like Cdk1. That’s great but what is missing from this equation?
Well like any car it’s pretty useless without…
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