SiriusXT was delighted to participate in the 11th International Congress on Electron Tomography (ICET 2026), held in Madison, Wisconsin, from 9–12 August.
Held every two years, ICET brings together leading researchers and technology developers working in electron tomography and 3D structural imaging. For SiriusXT, this year’s congress was particularly significant, reflecting the accelerating convergence of light, X-ray and electron microscopy in correlative imaging workflows across scales.
Opening the Volume
One of the themes of ICET 2026 – “Opening the Volume” – captured an important change taking place in structural biology.
There is growing recognition that understanding biological mechanisms requires more than resolving individual molecular structures. Researchers increasingly want to understand the behaviour and organisation of those structures within their natural biological environment – whether inside intact cells, tissues, organoids or other larger biological specimens.
As the volume of interest increases, no single imaging modality can provide all the required information. Instead, complementary imaging technologies are increasingly being combined to bridge the gap between cellular context and molecular resolution.
This is where soft X-ray tomography (SXT) can play an important role.
SXT provides high-resolution, three-dimensional imaging of intact biological cells and other relatively thick specimens, without the need for sectioning or staining. Integrated into a correlative workflow, light microscopy can identify biological events or regions of interest, SXT can reveal their surrounding 3D cellular context, and electron microscopy and cryo-electron tomography can subsequently interrogate selected regions at much higher resolution.
For SiriusXT, the increasing adoption of this Imaging Across Scales approach made ICET 2026 particularly relevant and provided an excellent opportunity to discuss how laboratory soft X-ray microscopy can complement existing cryo-electron imaging workflows.
From Madison to Vienna
SiriusXT would like to thank Elizabeth Wright and the University of Wisconsin–Madison team for organising an outstanding ICET 2026.
The closing ceremony provided a fitting conclusion to the meeting, with Grant Jensen of Brigham Young University presenting Elizabeth with a thank-you gift in recognition of the work involved in organising the congress.
The ICET baton has now passed to Sven Klumpe and the Vienna BioCenter, who have taken on the challenge of organising the 12th International Congress on Electron Tomography – ICET 2028 – in Vienna.
Congratulations to everyone involved in ICET 2026. We look forward to seeing how the drive to “open the volume” continues to bring the light, X-ray and electron microscopy communities closer together – and we look forward to Vienna in 2028.
