WALTHAM, Mass.– Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. has announced a Technology Alliance Agreement with the Chan Zuckerberg Institute for Advanced Biological Imaging (CZ Imaging Institute). This agreement aims to develop new technologies to enable researchers to better visualize human cells, significantly advancing scientific research and discovery.
Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is an essential tool in disease research and creating lifesaving therapeutics, including vaccine development. As the technique continues to evolve, so does the demand for enhanced contrast and higher resolution to see cellular structures in their native environments and in more detail than ever before, including the ability to analyze the inner workings of human cells in 3D and at industry-leading nanoscale resolution.
To address this demand, the respective teams are building on existing collaborations with Professor Holger Müller and his team at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), where the continuous laser phase plate for electron microscopy was invented and continues to be developed. Thermo Fisher will work alongside the CZ Imaging Institute to further develop laser phase plate technology for cryo-EM, enhancing cellular biology imaging at high resolution, while continuing the collaboration with Berkeley Lab.
“Broadening our understanding of basic cellular biology has the potential to unlock new layers of scientific research and therapeutic development, empowering researchers across the globe to uncover new insights in their labs,” said Trisha Rice, vice president and general manager of life sciences for the electron microscopy business of Thermo Fisher Scientific. “As we work to help our customers achieve their research goals, we are excited to collaborate with the CZ Imaging Institute to create new approaches in analytical science that aid future discovery.”
This project is a building block toward the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s (CZI) work to solve grand scientific challenges, including developing state-of-the-art imaging systems to observe human cells in extraordinary detail. The collaboration will bring together scientists and cryo-EM experts across the two organizations to maximize the impact of this brand-new laser phase plate technology, enabling the broader scientific community to collect more information from their cryo-EM efforts, leading to a deeper comprehension of biology and the advancement of cutting-edge biological research.
“At the Imaging Institute, we’re focused on innovating breakthrough imaging technologies to enable scientists to see and measure what is currently invisible within our cells and gain deeper insights into the biological mechanisms of human health and disease,” said Matthias Haury, CZ Imaging Institute acting executive director and chief operating officer. “We want to advance not only the experimental side of imaging science, but also deliver solutions to the community, and technology alliances with industry partners like Thermo Fisher allow the Imaging Institute to accelerate and scale technology development and share these advances with the scientists across the world more rapidly.”
Thermo Fisher’s Mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. This aligns with the CZI mission to help scientists cure, prevent, or manage all diseases by the end of the century. Toward this mission, the CZ Imaging Institute collaboratively develops revolutionary new imaging hardware and software tools to build breakthrough multimodal biological imaging systems.
