Three researchers from the Maina Lab at BioRTC — Mukhtar Lawan, Medina Sani and Mubarak Ismaila — are currently at the University of York, United Kingdom, undertaking specialised training in advanced biomedical imaging through Imaging 4 All (i4all) Access Grants.

Mukhtar and Medina are participating in an intensive Advanced Confocal Microscopy Workshop, developing hands-on expertise in image acquisition, optimisation and quantitative analysis using advanced confocal and spinning-disk platforms, including the Zeiss LSM 880 and LSM 980. Their training also covers techniques such as spectral unmixing, FRAP and FRET.

Mubarak is undertaking a three-week research visit applying label-free, AI-guided quantitative phase imaging (QPI) and computational analysis to investigate nucleolar stress associated with tau mutations in neuronal cells. Using the Tomocube HT-X1 holotomography platform, his work explores cellular changes without fluorescent labelling through quantitative differences in refractive index.

The researchers are hosted by Dr Peter O’Toole and the Imaging and Cytometry Laboratory, Technology Facility, University of York, extending a strong relationship in advanced imaging training and capacity development.

For the Maina Lab and BioRTC, these opportunities are about more than accessing sophisticated technologies. They are part of a deliberate effort to build local expertise in advanced microscopy, quantitative imaging and image analysis — expertise that can be transferred to other researchers and used to maximise BioRTC’s growing imaging infrastructure.

All three visits are supported through the Imaging 4 All (i4all) programme, funded by the Wellcome Trust and administered by Global BioImaging–EMBL.

At BioRTC, we continue to invest not only in advanced scientific infrastructure, but in the people capable of using it to drive internationally competitive research from Africa