Imaging in Cell Biology and Development

Dear Colleagues,

The visualization of cell biological processes has become an important approach to studying protein structure and function. Roger Tsien's discovery of green fluorescent protein and related fluorophores, their use as tools to study cellular processes using fusion proteins and the associated technological revolution in fluorescence microscopy, have seen the adoption of imaging techniques as a primary tool in every cell biologist's bag of tricks. Live cell imaging techniques are now providing another line of investigation for cell biological processes and molecular studies. The recent advances in super resolution microscopy have also added to the structural detail that can be visualised. The high sensitivity and specificity now attainable with spectral and two photon systems and the capacity to both "gate" and utilise auto and endogenous fluorescence have also added significantly to imaging capacity. At a recent meeting of Australasian cell biologists in Adelaide, a range of imaging techniques were discussed and through hands on practical forums new technologies and industry providers engaged. An international guest from the NIH, Dr Roberto Weigert, provided expert instruction on state of the art live cell and intravital imaging and demonstrated applications for respectively the analysis of in vitro and in vivo systems. In this special guest issue on "Imaging in Cell biology and Development" in the Journal Cells, a series of review articles, technical briefs and research articles are being assembled to reflect some of the available techniques and approaches available to the modern cell biologist and how these can be utilised to resolve cellular mechanism.

Prof. Doug Brooks
Dr. Tetyana Shandala
Guest Editors