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Hands-on quantitative imaging of living mammalian cells using advanced fluorescence microscopy
Provider: Department of Chemistry

Activity no.: 5787-24-10-10There are 23 available seats 
Enrollment deadline: 18/04/2025
PlaceDepartment of Chemistry
Universitetsparken 5, 2100 København Ø
Date and timeMay 2025
Regular seats24
ECTS credits5.00
Contact personDimitrios Stamou    E-mail address: stamou@chem.ku.dk
Enrolment Handling/Course OrganiserDimitrios Stamou    E-mail address: stamou@chem.ku.dk
Written languageEnglish
Teaching languageEnglish
Criteria for exam assessmentParticipation in all experimental work. Completion of online image analaysis assignments.
Course workload
Course workload categoryHours
Laboratory12.00
Class Instruction6.00
Lectures6.00
Theoretical exercises25.00
Practical exercises18.00
Preparation45.00
Assignments25.00
Sum137.00
Content
In this course you will learn how to acquire and analyze fluorescence microscopy images of cultured live mammalian cells in a way that enables you to extract quantitative, statistically significant, information about cellular processes, with high spatial and temporal resolution. The course is structured around three hands-on experiments you will be performing on state-of-the-art research-grade fluorescence microscopes. In the first experiment you will use a Spinning Disk Confocal Microscope to image cell-morphology and cell-signaling in 4D. In the second experiment you will use Total Internal Reflection Microscope to image the diffusion of single transmembrane proteins at the plasma membrane of live cells. In the second experiment you will use Stimulated Emission Depletion Microscope to image cells with super-resolution i.e. with a resolution below the optical diffraction limit. Each experiment will be accompanied by tailor-made image analysis sessions

Learning outcome
Knowledge:
• Understand the principles, capabilities, advantages and disadvantages of three of the most commonly used fluorescence microscopy modalities.
• Understand the advantages and disadvantages of different fluorescence protein labelling strategies.
• Process raw data to extract, objective, quantitative and statistically significant spatiotemporal metrics.

Skills:
• Hands-on experience operating three of the most commonly used fluorescence microscopy modalities
• Process image stacks with software algorithms for segmentation and automated analysis
• Analyze and evaluate scientific papers which utilize biological imaging

Competences:
• Understand the capabilities, advantages and disadvantages of the different fluorescence microscopy modalities used in the course
• Select the appropriate fluorescence microscopy modality to quantitively characterize the molecular or cellular process of your interest

Target group
The course targets two large student groups interested to quantitatively characterize living mammalian cells with high spatial and temporal resolution using advanced fluorescence microscopy: 1) students with a background in biological sciences (e.g. biology, biochemistry, cell biology, pharmacology, medicine) and 2) students with a physico-chemical background (e.g. chemistry, nanoscience, biophysics, bioengineering).

Research area: Biology, cell biology, molecular biomedicine, pharmacology, biochemistry, biophysics, bioengineering, nanoscience

BSc degree in relevant discipline, Enrolment in relevant MSc degree

Teaching and learning methods
Lectures, experimental work, Journal Clubs, flipped classroom, online images analysis excercises, practical excercises. Your laptop should be able to run MatLab or a similar data analysis program (~4GB RAM).

Lecturers
No Guest lectures

Remarks
All PhD students (including Danish Universities) are charged for instrument-time & laboratory expenses amounting to a total of 2000 DKK.

The registration is binding, and the course fee is non-refundable in case of participant cancellation after deadline 18th April 2025.

The course isTaking place: Department of Chemistry, HCØ, Building 3, 5th floor, Stamou Lab

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