Yohei visits Yokogawa Electric Corp. in Kanazawa, Japan

On July 14th 2017, Yohei was kindly invited to Yokogawa Electric Corporation (横河電機株式会社) in Kanazawa City, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan. Yokogawa stood in the middle of a forest up in the mountains, a 20 min drive away from Kanazawa city centre. On arrival, first of all, the architecture gave a strong impression - designed by Kazuyo Sejima+Ryue Nishizawa (SANAA) - the same architects who designed the landmark 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, and the Rolex Learning Center at EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Yokogawa is particularly well-known in the imaging research community. Their CSU (confocal scanner unit) i.e. spinning disk confocal is the go-to method for microscopists who do fast live cell imaging. Yokogawa's Kanazawa office heads their Life Science Program and is where the high throughput CSU microscopes i.e. CV1000, CV7000, CQ1 are manufactured. Two professors in CMM of University of Bristol (Rafael & Eugenia) recently purchased the CV7000, which was manufactured and shipped from this very location in Kanazawa.

A tour of the company was followed by an intro to their high content microscope(s) and their newly developed image analysis software which is due to be on the market this summer (2017).

After the tour Yohei gave a 1 hour seminar on the work on influenza A virus entry - we study viral uncoating and its mechanisms - relying heavily on high throughput imaging and automated image analysis for initial screening experiments. Some very interesting questions and discussions took place, leading to valuable insights into how researcher and manufacturer can communicate more frequently and exchange ideas to improve performance.

Thank you, Yokogawa.