The European Light Microscopy Initiative 2021 (elmi2021) conference took place virtually this year, between June 22nd and 25th. SiriusXT was pleased with the interest received in its presentation on ‘Laboratory-scale cryo soft X-ray tomography’.

Elmi was created in 2001 to establish a unique communication network between European scientists working in the field of light microscopy and the manufacturers of their equipment. Its aim is to promote the quickly developing field of light microscopy as a fundamental research tool for the life sciences and to strengthen the channels of communication between researchers, core facilities and industry.

As with most recent microscopy conferences, there is a growing awareness within the disease research and drug discovery communities of the benefits in combining different imaging modalities in order to generate more or better data than by utilising each modality as stand-alone.

The correlation of orthogonal imaging modalities, such as light microscopy and soft X-ray microscopy, which enables molecular-level, functional detail to be seen in the context of the structural detail of whole cells, can provide valuable information spanning the resolution range from nanometres to tens of micrometres. This complements the use of soft X-ray microscopy as a stand-alone technique for measuring the size, shape and distribution of organelles within a cell, now commonly referred to as Volume-XM.