A variety of advanced microscopic techniques is available that will ultimately permit the visualisation of supramolecular assemblies, e.g. at the cell membrane of DC, in real time. With further development, others will also enable cell-cell interactions to be studied within tissues of live animals in real time. Advanced flow cytometric techniques will complement these approaches and allow purification of cells (e.g. DC subsets for analysis in vitro) and dissection of immunological responses (e.g. tetramer analysis). These research areas comprise part of Cluster 2 that will be integrated with other themes (e.g. genomics of purified DC in Cluster 1, visualisation of cellular interactions within tumours in Cluster 3, and monitoring of patient responses in Cluster 4). The Advanced Imaging Platform will be lead by Figdor (P2, NL).