Understanding the complex interactions of molecular processes underlying the efficient functioning of the human body is one of the main objectives of biomedical research. Scientifically, it is important that the applied observation methods do not influence the biological system during observation. Yet, biomedical applications often demand coverage of a large range of spatial and temporal scales, information content, and/or long acquisition times, which can so far not all be covered by a single microscope and puts some challenges on microscope infrastructure. Taking infection processes and plasma membrane organisation as examples, we outline these challenges but also give new insights into possible solutions and the potentials of these advanced microscopy techniques, e.g. for solving long-standing questions such as of lipid membrane rafts.
Prof. Christian Eggeling (Jena/Germany, Oxford/UK) is a former senior scientist with Nobel Laureate Prof. Stefan Hell (MPI Göttingen)
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