with kind support of
Center for Fluorescence Spectroscopy &
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
University of Maryland Medical School
Baltimore, Maryland 21201
Course Chairman: Rainer Erdmann, PicoQuant GmbH
Summary
This course was held in Europe for the second time and was a great success. Altogether 73 people from universities and industrie from more than 15 countries participated. They attended 18 lectures and 3 hands-on experiment sessions with 10 different instruments from 5 companies, covering different methods and procedures in fluorescence spectroscopy.
Aims and Purpose
The course was intended for individuals wishing an in-depth introduction to the principles of fluorescence spectroscopy and its applications to the Life Sciences. Attendees were typically professionals who are using or intend to use fluorescence in their research. Most attendees had some knowledge of fluorescence, typically in a specialized area. However, other individuals from totally different research areas and industry, got the opportunity to enter this exciting field in a very effective way and benefit especially from the experimental section.
Course Instructors:
Joseph R. Lakowicz (Baltimore), Richard Thompson (Baltimore), Zygmunt "Karol" Gryczynski (Baltimore), Rainer Erdmann (Berlin), Michael Wahl (Berlin), Matthias Patting (Berlin)
Guest Lecturers:
Manfred Auer (Novartis AG) High Throughput Screening
Sabato D'Auria (Uni Naples) Structure, stability, conformational dynamics and biotechnological applications of thermophilic enzymes
Stefan Hell (MPI Goettingen) High Resolution Microscopy
Otto S. Wolfbeis (Uni Regensburg) Markers, Probes and Labels
Course Organization
The course was offered in two sections: Part I was primarily basic principles, and Part II went into details and stressed applications.
I. Principles of Fluorescence Spectroscopy
Part I covered the basics of steady state and time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy and instrumentation, and was designed for individuals who are not experts. Section I covered time- and frequency-domain measurements, anisotropy, solvent effects, quenching and Foerster energy transfer, as well as an introduction into data analysis.
II. Time-Resolved Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Principles, Instrumentation and Applications
Part II emphasised time-resolved fluorescence, together with advanced applications of fluorescence in biophysics, sensing, imaging, clinical chemistry, multi-photon excitation and ultrasensitive detection. Part II included guest lectures on fluorescence microscopy, multi-photon microscopy, correlation spectroscopy, single molecule detection and fluorescence markers as well as high-throughput screening.
Parts I and II consisted of lectures and a certain portion of hands-on experimentation (steady state and time-resolved experiments).
Hands-on instrumentation
The following companies offered hands-on experiments during the course:
Varian
HORIBA Jobin Yvon GmbH
Olympus
PTI
PicoQuant
Program / Location
The program and the time schedule are available for download in PDF format:
The lectures were held at the Max-Born Saal (located at the corner of Max-Born Strasse and Carl-Scheele Strasse). The hands-on experiments were located in the OWZ building (Rudower Chaussee 29).
The special lecture took place on Wednesday, 3 November 2004, 1:30 p.m. at the Max Born Saal, WISTA Campus, 12489 Berlin-Adlershof, Carl-Scheele-Str. 6 / Max-Born-Str.
About the Instructors and Guest Lecturers
The course was taught together by Dr. Joseph R. Lakowicz and staff at the CFS (Baltimore) as well as Rainer Erdmann and staff of PicoQuant GmbH (Berlin), plus guest lecturers. These individuals all have extensive experience in time-resolved fluorescence and its applications to Life Sciences.
is Head of the Single Molecule Detection group at FZ Juelich and specializes in Single Molecule Detection, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and complex data analysis
is Director of the High Resolution Optical Microscopy Group at Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany and specializes in new methods for microscopy with improved resolution and other innovative forms of biological imaging.
Manfred Auer
is Head of Innovative Screening Technologies (IST) at the Novartis Lead Discovery Center, as well as Univ. Dozent for Biophysical Chemistry at the University of Salzburg, Austria. He specializes in the development of novel drug discovery technologies.
is Professor and Vice Rector/President at Regensburg university and specializes in design and synthesis of long-wavelength and long-lifetime fluorescent bioprobes and on fluorescence based optical sensors
is Senior Scientist at PicoQuant GmbH and specializes in software design for time-correlated single photon counting instrumentation
Sabato (Tino) D'Auria
is Senior Scientist at the Institute of Protein Biochemistry, Italian National Research Council, Naples, Italy.
Previous Courses
The European short course on "Principles and Applications of Time-Resolved Fluorescence Spectroscopy" is an annual event since 2003. For further details about each year's event, please select the year from the list below.
