In the field of Microscopic Research at the SPIN-Lab Centre for Microscopic Research on Matter the Vinci RELOAD Interdisciplinary, International, Silesian Summer School 2026 offers participants the opportunity to explore modern microscopic techniques, including electron, atomic force, and confocal microscopy, to investigate the structure, composition, and properties of materials at the micro- and nanoscale. They will gain hands-on experience in sample preparation, imaging, and data analysis, learning how these methods are applied in materials science, nanotechnology, biology, and environmental research. Under the guidance of experienced researchers, students will carry out individual experimental projects, deepening their understanding of the research process and the interpretation of scientific results. The programme also provides a unique opportunity to become familiar with state-of-the-art laboratory infrastructure and the latest scientific developments conducted by the SPIN-Lab research teams
The school’s program includes classes in English with the following elements:
basic lecture interdisciplinary lecture online lectures specialist workshops
Basic lectures (15 hours + 15 hours of self-work)
A summer school student is required to attend all lectures in his or her primary discipline.
Interdisciplinary lecture (3 hours + 3 hours of self-work)
Capture natural state of living matter - electron microscopy in life science - Marcin Libera, PhD, Eng.
The lecture focuses on modern cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) techniques, with particular emphasis on sample preparation methods. It discusses key freezing strategies such as plunge freezing, high-pressure freezing, and slam freezing, along with approaches to fixation and rapid flash freezing of biological material. The lecture explains the importance of vitrification in protecting samples from electron beam damage and outlines the principles of low-dose microscopy. It also introduces the fundamentals of cryo-TEM tomography and the process of 3D reconstruction from tilt-series images. Overall, the session provides a comprehensive overview of techniques that enable high-resolution structural analysis while preserving the native state of specimens.
We strongly recommend the participants attend in all interdisciplinary lectures listed below across all four additional disciplines. It will be recognised with an extra certificate corresponding to 1 ECTS credit.
An analytical chemist serving as a forensic expert is responsible for the reliable examination of evidence using advanced instrumental analytical methods. Their role involves not only the identification and comparison of trace materials or chemical substances, but also the proper interpretation of results in the context of the forensic question, taking into account measurement uncertainty and methodological limitations. The expert’s opinion becomes a key component in the decision-making process of law enforcement and the judicial system. During the lecture, students will become familiar with: the basic concepts and objectives of applying instrumental analytical methods in physicochemical forensic examinations; instrumental analytical methods used in forensic laboratories for the analysis of evidential samples, with particular emphasis on the problem of trace evidence analysis, by a) scanning electron microscopy coupled with X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), b) X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF, µ-XRF), c) microspectrophotometry in the UV-VIS range (MSP), d) infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), e) Raman spectroscopy, f) chromatographic methods; the fundamental issues related to the interpretation of the evidential value of various types of data obtained in forensic laboratories, with particular emphasis on the likelihood ratio test.
As part of the first 3h block, the basic concepts of data mining will be introduced to students. Various data mining tasks will be highlighted and characterized. The Cross Industry Standard Process for Data Mining (CRISP) scheme will be presented. Issues related to data preprocessing will be discussed. Finally, methods for assessing the quality of data mining models will be presented.
One plus one makes two. And when something falls, it breaks. But does it always? Do you ever find yourself questioning the unquestionable? Wondering (even quietly) if it really makes sense? Sometimes you just want to do it your way and see what happens if... So we'll do it our way. We'll ask plenty of less-than-serious and more-than-serious questions. And we'll see if it actually... works. Maybe in a "stupid" question there's a seed of wisdom? Come and find out. Because in materials engineering, that's exactly how discoveries begin -- when we test what "everyone knows," look closer at cracks, strengths, and surprises hidden in matter itself. Sometimes it's the unexpected question that leads to a new material, a better design, or a smarter solution.
What is medical physics? What are the responsibilities of a medical physicist in therapy and medical imaging diagnostics? A brief description of selected diagnostic and therapeutic techniques. What is the future of medical physics? The lecture will include demonstrations utilizing selected medical devices. The lecture will presents the latest trends in the study of potential anticancer drugs. The topic of stages of research on new drugs will be discussed, with emphasis on the problem of in vivo testing. Moreover, the basic methods of toxicity testing of new substances and methods of verification of the obtained results will be presented. In the next part, other more advanced techniques (such as Western Blot, flow cytometry, PCR) allowing to determine the mechanism of anticancer activity will be presented. This will be followed by a discussion of the problems of selectivity of cytostatics to healthy tissue and methods to improve these parameters.
Online lecture (4 hours + 4 hours of self-work)
The lecture titled "Fundamentals of Transmission Electron Microscopy" will be delivered by a world-renowned expert professor Paulo Ferreira from International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL) from Portugal.
Specialist workshops (30 hours + 30 hours of self-work + 10 hours to prepar a presentation for a closing seminar)
Workshops for research teams. Each candidate will declare their readiness to cooperate with a given research team at the recruitment stage, selecting an appropriate topic. These will be stationary classes carried out in modern research laboratories. Each student has to obligatorily complete one topic from presented below:
- Three-Dimensional Modelling and Manufacturing of Polymer Porous Scaffolds for Cell Proliferation
- Characterization of Photoactive Materials by Correlative Microscopic Techniques
- Hyperspectral imaging for rapid diagnosis of Aspergillus flavus infections on wheat grains at an early stage of infection
- The Influence of Plastic Deformation on the Microstructure and Surface Chemical Composition of Structural Steel: A Correlation Analysis Using SEM-EDS and WDS
- Synthesis and microstructural characterization of fluorescent zinc chalcogenide quantum dots
- Development of an Optimized Embedding Protocol Based on Resin Composition Tuning for High-Fidelity Xenon Plasma Focused Ion Beam Sectioning of Biological Samples
- Characterization of carbon materials by TEM
