Volume Electron Microscopy

Kedar Narayan is a senior scientist and group leader at the Center for Molecular Microscopy at Frederick National Laboratory and National Cancer Institute, USA. Kedar has a Ph.D. in immunology, with an emphasis on biophysics and imaging, and a background in chemistry, pathology and software engineering. His group has developed and applied FIB-SEM and other volume EM (vEM) technologies to questions in cancer and cell biology. Specific areas of Kedar’s research focus are correlative imaging, deep learning/AI and vEM tool development; he has co-authored more than forty papers and given invited talks around the world. His community work includes co-organizing symposia on volume EM and “large data”, leadership on data working groups, and creating common metadata standards for the field. As a leading member of the volume EM community, Kedar is committed to the growth and democratization of the field. Dr. Lucy Collinson is an electron microscopist with a background in microbiology and cell biology. She has a degree and PhD in Medical Microbiology, and post-doctoral research investigating membrane trafficking pathways. She has run a series of biological EM facilities since 2004, at UCL and then at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute, which became part of the Francis Crick Institute in 2015. With a team of 10 electron microscopists and 3 physicists, she oversees more than 100 research projects with more than 60 research groups within the Crick, imaging across scales from proteins to whole organisms. Her microscopy and technology development interests include volume EM, correlative imaging techniques, cryo-microscopy, X-ray microscopy, image analysis, citizen science, microscope design and prototyping. In 2019, she was one of four scientists who led the formation of a volume EM community initiative, and in 2023 will co-chair the first volume EM Gordon Research Conference. Paul Verkade is a Professor of Bioimaging at the University of Bristol, UK where his research group works on the development and application of microscopy techniques to Biomedical questions. The main tools in the lab are Electron microscopy (EM) and Correlative Light Electron Microscopy (CLEM) in which fields he has published over 100 papers and edited 5 books on CLEM (including 4 Volumes of the Methods in Cell Biology series). PV obtained his PhD at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands in 1996. Subsequently he did a post-doc at the EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany, after which he set up the electron microscopy unit at the newly formed Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology in Dresden, Germany from 2001. He moved to the UK in 2006 to set up another EM unit as part of an integrated LM and EM bioimaging facility, which facilitates CLEM workflows. He is actively involved in shaping the future microscopy landscape with roles in the Royal Microscopical Society and BioimagingUK and a current focus on putting volumeEM on the imaging map through community building and the organisation and co-chairing of the 1st Gordon Research Conference on vEM.