SFBS 2026 last invited speakers are unveiled! Discover their portrait and their research topics in the post below. Are you interested to meet them and exchange on super-resolution microscopy? There is a few places left for SFBS 2026. You can still register for the event!
Zhixing Chen
Dr. Zhixing Chen is an associate professor with tenure at College of Future Technology, Peking University.
He received BS from Tsinghua University (2008) and PhD from Columbia University (2014). He has additional training at Stanford University (Postdoc 2016-2018) and Columbia University (Postdoc 2015).
The Chen lab at Peking University was established in 2018, who endeavors to integrate chemistry and biochemistry to create new imaging tools with high brightness, specificity, and biocompatibility to promote advanced bioimaging technologies, aiming to enable new approaches in cell biology, metabolism, and biophysics.
Their representative achievements include: The PK Mito and PK Zinc dye series, widely used in mitochondrial and insulin secretion imaging. The BD series of novel fluorophores, in conjunction with self-labeling tags, offer general protein labeling strategies with superior optical properties compared to fluorescent proteins.
Alara Kiris
Alara Kiriş is a second-year PhD student in the Laboratory of Experimental Biophysics at EPFL, under the supervision of Prof. Suliana Manley.
Her research focuses on developing smart microscopy tools to study mitochondrial dynamics and connectivity.
Prior to her PhD, she worked at ETH Zurich’s ScopeM, where she developed experimental workflows for DNA-PAINT, and RESI imaging nuclear pore complexes. She holds an MSc in Physics from the University of Trento, where she studied magnetoreception in Drosophila melanogaster using in vivo two-photon brain imaging, and a BSc in Engineering Physics from Istanbul Technical University.
Yiming Li
Yiming Li received his B. Eng. in Biomedical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong university in 2009, his master in Medical Physics at Heidelberg University in 2010, and his PhD in Biophysics at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in 2015. He was then an EMBL- EIPOD postdoctoral fellow at European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL, Heidelberg) and a visiting scholar at Yale University (2016-2019).
Afterwards, Yiming started his own lab at Southern University of Science and Technology. Yiming has a long-standing research focus on 3D super-resolution microscopy. The software he developed earned first place in the SMLM challenge, the most prestigious software contest in the field.
Yiming’s research interests include new optics theories, advanced algorithms, smart hardware design and imaging strategies for better resolution, greater depth, and higher throughput to show the wonders of the microscopic world.
Eva-Maria Schentarra
Eva-Maria Schentarra is a Ph.D. student in the group of Ralf Jungmann at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry and Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) in Munich.
She studied Molecular Biotechnology at Heidelberg University and developed a strong interest in advanced microscopy and single-molecule biophysics.
During research stays at EMBL Heidelberg with Jonas Ries and at Aix-Marseille University with Christophe Leterrier, she worked on motor protein dynamics using MINFLUX tracking and on the nanoscale organization of the neuronal cytoskeleton using SMLM. She later completed her master’s thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Stefan Hell, where she applied MINFLUX to study motor-protein stepping behavior in cells.
Since starting her Ph.D. in 2023, she has focused on developing highly multiplexed DNA-PAINT imaging strategies to investigate the nanoscale organization of synaptic proteins. Her current work bridges methodological development and biological applications, advancing multiplexed imaging while addressing questions in cell and neurobiology.
Don’t miss this opportunity to meet these experts during SFBS 2026! Join us in Bordeaux from October 19 to 21, 2026!
