Friday, 20 January 2012 09:48

EMBO Course, South Africa

Imaging infection: from single molecules to animals

by Thuvaraka Thavayogarajah (Phillips-University Marburg, Germany)

Understanding infection at the molecular and cellular level requires the development of suitable experimental tools. The invention of microscopy back in the 17th century    was the first step in visualizing and understanding the role of microbes as infectious agents; however, the last decades also yielded a large amount of novel imaging technologies which became a major source in understanding the very basic principles involved in infection.

To get young scientists acquainted and up-to-date with the rapidly emerging new imaging technologies and their applications in the field of infectious diseases a practical course on imaging techniques entitled: ‘Imaging infection - from single molecules to animals’ was organized by Freddy Frischknecht (Heidelberg University Medical School, Germany), Jost Enninga (Institute Pasteur, France) and Musa Mhlanga (CSIR, South Africa).

The course was supported by the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) and took place at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria, South Africa in the first two weeks of November, 2011. Sixteen post-docs and PhD students were selected from different parts of the world to participate in this very intense course comprised of a unique mixture of lectures from renowned invited speakers and practical sessions with hands-on experience.
Lectures were covering the application and the importance of imaging technologies like standard, super resolution and high throughput microscopy in the field of infectious diseases to identify key molecules involved in infection. In a practical session a siRNA screen was performed to identify host cell factors involved in host-pathogen interaction using enteroinvasive pathogens, such as Shigella and Salmonella as model organisms.

Freddy Frischknecht introduced the students to live-cell imaging discussing his research subject on imaging motile malaria parasites. In the practicals the studentswere able to get hands-on experience on widefield and confocal microscopy by imaging fluorescent labeled samples. Hesper Rego (CSIR, South Africa) and Musa Mhlanga dedicated their lectures to ‘super resolution light microscopy’ techniques, explaining that the higher resolution of these microscopes enables the visualization of single molecules down to about 10 nm precision. Imaging technologies also require the development of image processing tools. Therefore Jean-Christophe Olivo-Marin (Institute Pasteur, France) and Alexandre Dufour (Institute Pasteur, France) presented lectures on the development of image analysis tools for the processing and quantification of biological images. In the practical session a further introduction on icy and Fiji (open source community softwares for bio-imaging) took place. Many more lectures were dedicated to the different types of ‘super resolution light microscopy’ techniques (Musa Mhlanga, CSIR), to bioluminescence (BRET and FUEL) (Joe Dragavon, Institute Pasteur, France), and to the advantages and challenges of ‘high content analysis’ imaging (Spencer Shorte, Institute Pasteur, France)

Apart from lectures and tutorials on imaging techniques the students were also introduced to scientific writing by Barbara Janssen (DKFZ, Heidelberg, Germany) and participated in an outreach program, where they shared their experience of becoming a scientist with young talented students from the African Leadership Academy from Johannesburg. Exciting social events were also planned like a day-trip to ‘Groenkloof Nature Reserve’ to discover the beauty of South Africa’s nature and a visit to the Apartheid museum in Johannesburg. Altogether the course on ‘imaging infection’ was a great opportunity to learn from experts with different scientific backgrounds about their engagement in developing and applying imaging tools to study host-pathogen interaction.

Reference: Script on ‘Imaging Infection: from single molecules to animals’