WEHI Expansion Microscopy Workshop hosted by Centre for Dynamic Imaging

Dr Benjamin Liffner

Senior Research Associate – School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Technology  - The University of Adelaide

The past, present, and future of expansion microscopy

Davis Auditorium

Join via TEAMS

Including Q&A session                     

Light microscopy is one of the most robust and widely applicable tools in all of biology. Through history, the overwhelming majority of our advancements and innovation in light microscopy were based on improved instrumentation: bigger and better microscope, faster and higher resolution images. In 2015 this instrumentation-driven advancement of light microscopy was turned on its head with the invention of expansion microscopy (ExM). Instead of looking more closely at the sample with a better instrument, expansion microscopy instead makes the sample bigger. In the decade since this invention, many flavours and variants of ExM have arisen but they converge on the same goal of making a specimen bigger so you can visualise its biology better. This presentation serves as the introduction to the 2025 WEHI Expansion Microscopy Workshop and will cover the history of expansion, the ultrastructure-expansion microscopy protocol that will be taught in the workshop, where this technique is headed in the future, and how we can ensure Australian researchers capitalise on this transformative technique.

Ben is a Future Making Fellow at Adelaide University, where he recently started his own research group. Through his career, Ben’s research has focussed on the development of novel imaging and analysis techniques to study the cell biology of parasites. During a postdoc with Sabrina Absalon at Indiana University School of Medicine, Ben began working with expansion microscopy. Seeing first-hand the transformative ability of this technique in malaria parasites, Ben has spent approximately the last five years utilising expansion microscopy to explore biology that couldn’t be seen before. A recognised expert in the expansion microscopy field, Ben has taught workshops on the technique in several countries and to hundreds of people.

All welcome!