33 million euro investment unites universities for pioneering molecular research.
A truly national facility
EMPower (Electron Microscopy from whole organism to atomic resolution) is a major new national facility for electron microscopy. It has been awarded to a consortium of Dutch universities and medical centers. With a 33 million euro investment, the program will provide world-class instruments and expertise, so scientists can actually see how molecules work inside cells and tissues. EMPower aims to pave the way for major discoveries impacting health, disease and sustainability research. The consortium collaborates as the Netherlands Electron Microscopy Infrastructure (NEMI).
EMPower represents one of the largest research infrastructure investments in the Dutch life sciences. It brings together leading expertise on microscopy from across the country, and all universities engaged in life sciences research. The programme is coordinated by Utrecht University, with project components led by Leiden University, University of Groningen, Maastricht University, UMC Utrecht and Amsterdam UMC.
EMPower at Amsterdam UMC
Within the Amsterdam UMC, 2 group leaders are involved in separate projects:
Dr Katy Wolstencroft, Associate Professor at the Amsterdam UMC and co-director of the Advanced Compute and Data Core (ACDC), will lead the development of the EMPower FAIR data and analysis infrastructure. The international FAIR principles, which state that data should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, are guidelines to help researchers describe, store and publish their data in a way that makes it more reproducible and easier to reuse. Wolstencroft leads similar developments in the NL-Bioimaging Infrastructure, for Advanced (light) Microscopy. EMpower and NL-Bioimaging will join forces on data and bioimage analysis, working together as an integrated national team of experts across electron and light microscopy.
Wolstencroft: “This is a tremendous opportunity to build capacity for a common approach to FAIR data and AI image analysis, which will showcase exciting new discoveries and insights from the use of the EMpower Research Infrastructure”
Dr Nicole van der Wel, Associate Professor at the Amsterdam UMC, Department Medical Biology and head of the Electron Microscopy Centre Amsterdam, will lead the community building of the EMPower project. A central mission of the project is to get communities together by organizing scientific meetings, user trainings and community events. Van der Wel will coordinate the nationwide educational program focused on the EMPower technologies, consisting of courses held at EMPower nodes, organized by local staff with the support of a central EMPower website for easy registration and course evaluation. The educational program will invest 1.2 million euro to strengthen the community and to ensure most efficient use of the EMPower infrastructure.
Van der Wel: “EMpower will foster the individual careers of the researchers of the future and contribute to a well-educated workforce, which will strengthen the scientific, technological and innovation landscape of the Netherlands.
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