Pre-congress IFSM Advanced School (Sunday, September 19^th, 2010)

During his term as IFSM President, David Cockayne took a particular interest in strengthening the support that IFSM can give to young scientists throughout the world. In particular, he decided to hold a one-day School on the Sunday, opening the IFSM Congress, to welcome all scholars receiving a travel and registration support from IFSM or from the local organizers. The first of these events took place in Sapporo at the opening of IMC16. It was by all accounts a resounding success. David Cockayne in his presidential’s report expressed the hope that this School and these scholarships would become a traditional part of future IMCs, as part of the legacy he would like to leave. I have no doubt that this was an excellent initiative and I am enthusiastic to carry it on.

During the preparation of IMC17, both the Brazilian Microscopy Society (SBMM) and IFSM have committed themselves to attribute a number of scholarships aiming at attracting young microscopists from all over the world to attend the International Congress.

See www.imc-17.com/scholarships/ for all details concerning the rules of application and selection of these student and young investigator travel scholarships.

In consequence, a pre-congress one-day IFSM advanced school will be organized specially for these selected younger attendees on Sunday, September 19. It will consist of four tutorial lectures (typically one hour long plus ample time for discussion) delivered by world renowned experts, describing a few fields of instrumentation and methods in microscopy in spectacular development, thus paving the path to enlarged fields of use.

• Knut Urban (Forschungzentrum Jülich, Germany) will describe “High Resolution Electron Microscopy — Diving into the World of Atoms”
• Andreas Engel (Biozentrum Basel, Switzerland) will present the “state-of-the-art in mass determination of biomolecular assemblies using the STEM and the perspectives for single cell proteomics by combining automated sample preparation and STEM”.
• Michael S. Isaacson (UCSC, Santa Cruz, USA) will review “Microscopy through the centuries: an exploration of microscopic imaging without lenses”.
• Christian Colliex (Université Paris Sud 11 and CNRS, Orsay, France) will demonstrate how “the introduction of electron and photon spectrometers in a (S)TEM provides a new dimension of information on the elemental composition and physical properties down to the atomic column and single atom”.

Christian Colliex
IFSM President