8th European short course on
"Principles and Applications of Time-resolved Fluorescence Spectroscopy"

Summary

This course was held in Europe for the eigth time and was again greatly enjoyed by all participants. Altogether more than 40 people from universities and industry from 18 different countries participated. They attended 12 lectures and 5 hands-on experiment sessions with 7 different instruments from 3 companies, covering different methods and procedures in fluorescence spectroscopy.

Aims and Purpose

The course is intended for individuals wishing an in-depth introduction to the principles of fluorescence spectroscopy and its applications to the Life Sciences. Attendees are typically professionals who are using or intend to use fluorescence in their research. Most attendees have some knowledge of fluorescence, typically in a specialized area. However, other individuals, from totally different research areas and industry, get the opportunity to enter this exciting field in a very effective way and benefit especially from the experimental section.

Course organisation

The lectures on Monday and Tuesday dealt with basic of steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy, instrumentation and data analysis. They covered time- and frequency-domain measurements, anisotropy, solvent effects, quenching and Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET).

The lectures on Wednesday and Thursday covered advanced time-resolved fluorescence topics and data analysis. Applications of fluorescence in biophysics, sensing, clinical chemistry or material science were presented along with an introduction into fluorescence microscopy.

Apart from the lectures, hands-on experimentation (steady-state and time-resolved experiments as well as data analysis) was offered on various instruments provided by market leading companies.

Hands-on instrumentation

The following companies offered hands-on experiments during the course:

• Horiba Jobin-Yvon
• PicoQuant
• Agilent