St. Louis, MO, January 26, 2023—The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative awarded a two-year grant for Advancing Imaging Through Collaborative Projects to Kirk Czymmek, PhD, director of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center’s Advanced Bioimaging Laboratory, Michele Darrow of Rosalind Franklin Institute, and Paul Verkade of the University of Bristol, along with an international team of eight additional scientists.

Czymmek’s team will build a global community and training resources around volume electron microscopy (vEM), a cutting-edge technology that allows scientists to go beyond the standard two-dimensional images that most microscopes provide and to instead view three-dimensional images over large areas down to about one nanometer. This summer, the Advanced Bioimaging Laboratory will receive a new vEM microscope called the Helios 5 “Hydra” DualBeam. This microscope will allow scientists to see cells and tissues in a novel and largely unexplored way, opening the door for a deeper understanding of the cellular level and enhancing the potential for new discoveries.  READ MORE