The first Turku Imaging Day will take place in Turku on October 3rd. The day will bring together the imaging community of Turku's universities, which may be unexpectedly large. "Almost 100% of researchers in life sciences use imaging in their work," says Research Manager Pasi Kankaanpää of the Turku Faculty of Medicine.
Turku has called itself the European imaging capital for a long time. This does not only include state-of-the-art equipment, service centres and infrastructure, but also the people who use and develop imaging methods and technologies. They maintain and continue to build Turku's reputation in the field. According to Pasi Kankaanpää, it was therefore high time to organise a dedicated event for them to meet face-to-face, share experiences, and brainstorm new opportunities for cooperation.
"We offer the opportunity to network. We don't know just how big our imaging community is and how many people will join us, which remains to be seen. The idea is that the meeting is within our own people and we didn’t, for example, invite speakers from elsewhere. We are giving space especially to our early-career researchers to talk about their work." says Kankaanpää.
More experienced speakers of the day include Professor Pekka Hänninen, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, and Associate Professor Kirsi Virtanen from the Turku PET Centre. Hänninen will talk about the Nobel Prize-leading development of the high-precision fluorescence microscopy in Turku, and Kirsi Virtanen will lead the audience through the research that discovered functional brown fat in adult humans.
Research Manager Jiri Funda from the Turku PET Centre hopes that researchers from all career stages join the imaging day. He especially encourages early-career researchers to attend. Funda is convinced that, regardless of their area of expertise, researchers can benefit from each other's experience. The day will include a traditional poster exhibition for everyone to present their research, but it’s also possible to introduce research projects via a two-minute short speech.
“It's a competition where you can describe your research, but only verbally and with images. No written text is allowed." says Funda. He hopes that participants take into consideration the different scientific backgrounds of the audience and keep their presentations general and easy to follow.
Turku Imaging Day is organised by BioCity Turku's Field of View imaging research program. The venue is the Osmo Järvi Hall of Medisiina C, where the scientific programme starts at 9:00 on October 3rd.