Oct. 7, 2020
Virtual Raman Imaging Poster Summit 2020 Successfully Concludes
Online event showcased the latest research and drew international participation
WITec GmbH, the driver of innovation in Raman and correlative microscopy, has completed hosting its first entirely online scientific conference.
The Virtual Raman Imaging Poster Summit 2020 was organized as a substitute for the renowned Confocal Raman Imaging Symposium. WITec wanted to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of the exciting chemical characterization research that continues to advance while the scientific community is distributed. It was a response to the uncertainty and travel restrictions imposed by the ongoing pandemic, and it was a resounding success.
Over 250 people took part and 55 scientific posters were submitted in four different categories. The range of applications included the analysis of active ingredient and excipient distribution in pharmaceutical tablets, characterization of battery materials, detection of microplastic particles, cancer diagnosis, chemical analyses of organoids and polymer fibers in 3D, bacterial signaling investigation, analysis of microinclusions in arctic ice, extremely high-pressure Raman measurements, strain analyses in semiconductors, and many more.
“We were cautiously optimistic that the community would embrace the online conference format to share their recent work, and then the reaction far exceeded our expectations,” described WITec Marketing Director Harald Fischer. “The diversity, both scientifically and geographically, of the posters submitted really reflected the widespread adoption of Raman imaging.”
Discussions were carried out on the platform’s chat function and participants cast their votes for the Best Poster Award, which was won by Dr. Nathalie Jung (Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany) for her presentation titled, “Chemically-selective visualisation of organoids and their interaction with hydrogel matrices.”
The Virtual Raman Imaging Poster Summit and the thoroughly international engagement it produced has encouraged WITec to continue developing online event formats while the company looks forward to bringing the Raman imaging community back together in person. The Confocal Raman Imaging Symposium will return for its 17th occasion from September 27th through the 29th, 2021 in Ulm, Germany.
