Macro to Micro: Quantitative Plant Imaging Across Scales
Date: 22-25 February 2026
Location: Buxted Park, East Sussex, UK
Organisers: Mark Fricker, Alexander Johnson, Joseph McKenna and Markéta Šámalová
Plants are one of the most important lifeforms on our planet, making up the vast majority of biomass on earth as well as being the basis for planetary food supply. To feed a growing population and aid food security, we must understand how plants develop and interact with their environments. These physiological and developmental programs are the summation of dynamic processes occurring at different scales – where single molecules can dictate and mediate whole plant responses and growth. Therefore, to truly understand and harness plant growth we must understand the interplay of these processes within and across multiple scales from the whole plant to cellular and ultrastructure levels.
This Workshop will showcase and bring together interdisciplinary researchers utilising imaging across different spatial levels in plants. It aims to forge links across these differing imaging areas to increase our holistic understanding of plant physiology. We will have sessions dedicated to methodologies and applications of imaging at:
- Whole plant and tissue scales (e.g. Macroscopes, automated growth chambers, biosensors)
- Cellular and Subcellar scales (e.g. organelle dynamics, organelle-organelle contact sites, super-resolution imaging)
- Ultrastructural scales (e.g. CryoEM, serial block face EM)
- Quantification (e.g. AnalyzER, machine-learning analysis)
A key feature of this workshop is that we have invited ‘non-plant’ experts to provide an ‘outside’ perspective for each of the sessions listed above. This is to stimulate cross model interdisciplinary conversations to further push the boundaries of plant quantitative imaging.
Organisers & speakers
Mark Fricker University of Oxford, UK
Alexander Johnson University of Exeter, UK
Joseph McKenna University of Warwick, UK
Markéta Šámalová Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Malcolm Bennett University of Nottingham, UK
Federica Brandizzi Michigan State University, USA
Inge De Clercq Vlaams Institute for Biotechnology (Vib), Belgium
Florian Fäßler IGBMC, France
Murray Grant The University of Warwick, UK
Robert Haase Universität Leipzig, Germany
Byung Ho Kang The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Charlotte Kirchhelle RDP, France
Brendan Lane John Innes Centre, UK
James Manton MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, UK
Alexandre Martiniere Montpellier University, France
Valerian Meline Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Marisa Otegui University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA
Priya Ramakrishna EPFL, Switzerland
Markus Schwarzländer Münster University, Germany
Daniel von Wangenheim Intelligent Imaging Innovations GmbH, Germany
Early-career researchers
We offer 10 funded places for early-career researchers (PhD, postdocs and PIs in the first three years of their first appointment) to attend our Workshops along with the 20 invited speakers. We just ask that you pay for your own travel costs. If you would like to attend please complete the online application form and include a one page CV and a letter of support from your supervisor. If your supervisor would prefer to send the letter directly to us please ask them to email it to workshops@biologists.com
All attendees are expected to actively contribute to the Workshops by asking questions at presentation sessions and taking part in discussions, as well as giving a short talk on their research.
Some travel grants are available for researchers that are based in Global South countries (list of qualifying GS countries ), on an application basis. Please contact us for more details.
About Buxted Park
The Workshop will be held at the beautiful Buxted Park in East Sussex which dates back to the 12th century. The current house was built in 1722 by Sir Thomas Medley and is an elegant Grade II Palladian mansion set in 312 acres of parkland. Over the years it has played host to a number of high profile visitors including William Wordsworth, Winston Churchill, and George V and Queen Mary. Whilst it was a health hydro in the 1960s Gregory Peck, Dudley Moore and Marlon Brando were regular visitors.
Buxted Park is less than 25 miles from Gatwick Airport and 60 miles from Heathrow Airport. There are direct trains taking 1 hour 10 minutes from London Bridge to the village of Buxted which is only a mile away from the hotel.
Buxted Park Hotel
Station Road
Buxted
East Sussex
TN22 4AY
Tel: +44 (0) 1825 733333
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