Life in Focus: The conference of the German Society of Cytometry (DGfZ) met in Jena
Nearly 200 scientists attended this year’s conference of the DGfZ themed “Life in Focus“, held at the Ernst-Abbe-Hochschule in Jena. From October 4-6, the annual meeting was held in Jena for the first time and the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technologies was organiser of the event.
Cytometry is an essential analysis technique in the fields of biology, medicine and ecology. It is used to examine cells and their genetic, biochemical and structural characteristics. High-ranking international scientists met this year in Jena, to exchange ideas on this scientific area and to discuss new methods and applications. Amongst others, the topics covered the elucidation of different communicational pathways between cells up to the analysis of microscopically small plastic particles, who endanger our environment as micro plastic.
In total, 23 different companies presented their current products in the framework of the industrial exhibition to forge links and deepen the ones that were already established. The conference dinner on the evening of the second day of the conference offered a suitable frame to award distinguished scientific achievements. The Klaus-Goerttler-Prize, who is awarded to young scientists who graduated with a distinguished postdoctoral or doctoral degree in the field of cytometry was presented to Julia Reinhardt of the University Bonn. The prize is endowed with 1000 euro and is annually presented on the occasion of the conference. Furthermore, Andreas Kleiber, a junior researcher of the Leibniz institute of Photonics Technologies, won the poster award endowed with 200 euro. The PhD student’s poster presented a technique for 3D-tomographic imaging flow-cytometry. The latter successively captures images from every spatial direction. The first prototype allows to take images of more than 100 cells per second.
“This year’s conference with nearly 200 participants was one of the largest conferences in the history of the DGfZ. I am especially proud, to have realised such a top-class scientific program. I am looking forward to hosting the conference again next year“, concludes conference chair Wolfgang Fritzsche, head of department at the Leibniz-IPHT.
Prof. Wolfgang Fritzsche and the organizing team would like to thank all chairs, exhibitors, speakers, participants, poster presenters and authors for marking this year’s conference a success. We look forward to welcoming all of you in Jena again next year!
And last but not least, some impressions of the 27th Annual Conference of the German Society for Cytometry (Photographs by Christian Kranhold)
