3d illustration electron microscopic of red blood cells
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3d illustration electron microscopic of red blood cells

The EMBL Imaging Centre: Enabling ground-breaking research in the life sciences

The global scientific community is provided with unique conditions at the new EMBL service unit in Heidelberg.

Few regions in Europe are home to as many research institutions as Baden-Württemberg. These include major international research centres.
One of them is the Heidelberg-based  European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Europe’s leading life sciences laboratory. With the mission of promoting molecular biology research in Europe, training young scientists, and developing new technologies, it is supported by 27 member states and has laboratories across six sites in Europe.

Access to advanced technologies for a global community of scientists

It’s worth taking a closer look at EMBL’s newest unit: The EMBL Imaging Centre in Heidelberg, which officially opened on 30 June 2022, offers researchers from all over Europe and beyond access to the most advanced microscopy technologies available.

Since only a minority of scientists have access to the latest imaging technologies as the devices are expensive and complex in their set-up, maintenance and usage, the centre enables ground-breaking research at the global level.

“The opening of the EMBL Imaging Centre is an important moment for the European science community. Access to advanced technologies is key to enabling scientific progress,” said Edith Heard, EMBL Director General at the opening ceremony. “EMBL has pioneered many of the imaging technologies and workflows that scientists apply today, and the EMBL Imaging Centre provides a unique opportunity to benefit from such development.” (Source: EMBL Press Release)

Collaboration with industry

The EMBL Imaging Centre also fosters collaboration between research and industry by working with leading technology developers from both parties. In fact, the EMBL Imaging Centre was made possible not only through public funds, namely through financial support by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the State Ministry of Baden-Württemberg for Sciences, Research and Arts (MWK), but also by further contributions from industry partners (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Leica Microsystems and Carl Zeiss Microscopy), as well as by donations from the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation and HeidelbergCement.

There are already user stories which show the great potential and contribution of the centre to scientiftic progress. Here’s what one previous user, Dr. Ron Diskin, Principal Investigator at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Israel, says: „If there’s a possibility to get scope time in Heidelberg, that would be a better choice than any other microscope in the world today, just because of the little tweaks they made. We were able for the first time to determine the structure of FAS-1 multi-enzyme complex to high enough resolution to now try the approach to locate the drug bound to the complex.”(Source:  EMBL Imaging Centre user stories)

And Yonca Ural-Blimke, an Imaging Centre user from BASF says: „By using EMBL we are able to do the best research we can without having to buy our own microscope which would be a very expensive commitment.“ (Source:  EMBL Heidelberg Youtube)

Tip for international researchers: EMBL is also a globally renowned incubator for new talent! Are you interested? Check out its open positions here.

Tip for international students: Are you looking for interesting study programs in life sciences? Check out our study search.

Author: Leonie Rörich