Royal Microscopical Society (RMS)'s official attendance figures confirm Microscience 2008 in London was the largest to date in terms of exhibition and conference size, as well as daily visitor numbers
With 2170 visitors over the full three days of the event, this represents a 15% increase on total registrants from 2006.
Visitors from every continent except Antarctica attended this year's event, and for the first time over 25% of conference attendees were international.
"Our plan is to continue to grow the conference".
"The increased attendance from outside the UK is evidence that we are heading in the right direction".
"I believe that everybody that attended this year will have seen that we are creating something special and I believe that we have a great platform on which to build for 2010," commented Rob Flavin, RMS executive director.
"In addition, with exhibition-only visitor numbers also up by 45%, we feel that this heralds a bright future for microscopy.
"With Microscience being held every two years we feel that we can provide the perfect platform to showcase the many new techniques and applications that microscopy continues to deliver".
The flagship of RMS activities, which centre around communicating the role and value of microscopy in progressing science, Microscience 2008 provided researchers, scientists and the industry as a whole with a varied and inspired insight into the fast-paced world that microscopy has become, with many new products and techniques introduced at the event.
The commitment of the RMS to securing the future of microscopy was further demonstrated at Microscience 2008 through initiatives to train and financially assist attending scientists, particularly to encourage those in their early careers, who may have an immense impact on microscopy in years to come.
The RMS Learning Zone once again proved to be a very popular aspect of the event, as well as the displays of poster and micrograph competition finalists.
The RMS announceS the winners of both micrograph and poster competitions.
The daily winners of the RMS Microscience 2008 Poster competition were:.
Tuesday: Senthila Pathmananthan - 'Development of burst integrated fluorescence lifetime system for single-pair Fret to analyse interacting protein populations'.
Wednesday: Adrian Evans - 'Laser scanning of confocal microscopy and the study of lithic microwear on stone tools and the imaging of other archaeological materials'.
Thursday: Yanzhou Zhou - 'Frequency Domain Imaging of Lifetime and Anisotropy Spectra'.
RMS International Micrograph competition 2008 winners were:.
Life Science Light Microscopy: Steve Lowry - 'Portion of longitudinal section of hen's tongue'.
Materials Science Light Microscopy: Karl Dekart - 'Photographic fixing salt'.
Life Science Electron Microscopy: Steve Gschmeissner - 'SEM of mole nose to show specialised Eimers organs'.
Materials Science Electron Microscopy: David McCarthy and Annie Cavanagh - 'Pharmaceutical Drug delivery Polymer (polymethacrylic acid and the corticosteroid drug prednisolone)'.
