EM Life Science Newsletter

With a state-of-the-art inductively coupled plasma focused ion beam and four ion species, the Thermo Scientific Hydra Bio Plasma-FIB helps you find the right ion beam for all your samples. The four ion species (argon, nitrogen, oxygen, and xenon) are compatible with all commonly used sample-embedding media and protocols like high-pressure freezing.

With its advanced software suite, the Hydra Bio Plasma-FIB helps you gather consistent, high-quality, gallium-free data from volumes of biological specimens and create high-quality lamella from cell or tissue samples using cryo-lift-out.

Scanning electron microscopy offers a diverse range of techniques to study biological specimens at high magnification and resolution. By leveraging different imaging methods, researchers can gain valuable insights into the structure, morphology, and interactions of cells, tissues, and biomaterials.

Explore how the Thermo Scientific Apreo ChemiSEM System combines high-resolution SEM imaging, volume EM workflows, and integrated elemental analysis to deliver deeper insights into biological samples through streamlined, user-friendly workflows.

Our 200 kV cryo-TEM innovations are helping to bring high-resolution cryo-EM capabilities to a broader range of research and pharmaceutical labs.

Early 200 kV technology could only resolve rabbit muscle aldolase to 15 Å. Today, advances in detector technology, automation, and image processing have pushed this resolution dramatically further:

• 2017: 2.6 Å (EMDB: 8743)
• 2020: 2.1 Å (EMDB: 21023)
• Today: 1.9 Å with the Thermo Scientific Glacios 3 Cryo-TEM (EMDB: 74335)

The latest results were achieved with:

• 8,925 images collected in just 12 hours
• Average throughput exceeding 700 images per hour
• Only about four hours needed to achieve the previously reported 2.1 Å resolution

High-resolution structure determination is now much more attainable.

RAPID (Remote Access Program for Interactive Diagnostics) is a proprietary service technology that provides remote support to your electron microscopes. The program provides desktop-sharing access to remote service engineers and application specialists through a secure connection. RAPID helps our engineers solve problems more quickly, reducing the downtime of your instrument.

We released RAPID Connection Wizard (RCW) version 5.0.7, the latest recommended version of the software used to establish RAPID remote-support connections. RCW 5.0.7 is a security-focused update that addresses identified vulnerabilities and provides bug fixes. It also incorporates maintenance, compatibility, and installer improvements.

Used electron microscopes make advanced imaging and analysis more accessible for life sciences research in academia and pharma. Thermo Fisher Scientific's EM Certified Solutions program offers professionally reconditioned electron microscopes that deliver the trusted performance and innovation of Thermo Scientific technologies at a competitive price.

Each instrument is certified by qualified professionals at our global Certification Centers, giving you confidence in quality and reliability. Whether you're expanding capabilities, replacing aging equipment, or working within a budget, EM Certified Solutions can help you refresh your technology and achieve your research or production goals.

We offer a constant stream of improvements and updates to our electron microscopy software to help you achieve your goals as quickly and easily as possible. On this software resource portal, you will find constantly updated information and assets you need to get up to date with your electron microscopy software. This includes access to new release information, documentation, support requests, and new release installers—subject to service terms and conditions.

As advanced imaging technologies generate increasingly complex 2D and 3D datasets, traditional analysis methods can become inefficient and difficult to scale. AI-driven image analysis offers a more consistent and efficient approach to processing large volumes of microscopy data.

In this on-demand webinar, learn how AI-enabled workflows can support faster, more reproducible image analysis, from segmentation to data interpretation, helping you move from raw images to meaningful biological insights.

Artificial intelligence is helping transform life sciences image analysis by making complex workflows faster, more accurate, and less reliant on manual processing. From improving noisy, low-contrast microscopy images to identifying intricate biological structures, machine learning and deep learning approaches can help researchers extract more reliable quantitative insights from increasingly complex imaging datasets.

Our recent blog explores how AI-powered capabilities in Thermo Scientific Amira Software support key steps across the image analysis workflow, including denoising, 2D/2.5D/3D segmentation, cell segmentation, and object classification. With guided tools that require no coding and can work with relatively small amounts of annotated data, these capabilities can help researchers reduce manual effort while improving the accuracy and reproducibility of their analyses.

Cryo-electron tomography enables three-dimensional visualization of biological specimens in a near-native, vitrified state at nanometer resolution. By acquiring a series of tilted projection images in a transmission electron microscope and computationally reconstructing them into a tomogram, cryo-ET reveals the structural organization of macromolecular complexes, organelles, and cellular environments directly inside cells.

Advances in cryogenic sample preparation, focused ion beam milling, automated tilt series acquisition, and computational analysis have significantly improved the accessibility and throughput of cryo-ET workflows.

We put together a curated selection of peer-reviewed publications demonstrating how cryo-ET is advancing discovery across six life sciences research areas.

Are you working with cells, tissues, organoids, or small organisms and seeking to resolve molecular organization within native cellular context? Cryo-electron tomography provides nanometer-scale, three-dimensional insight into vitrified specimens, enabling targeted imaging and quantitative analysis within native cellular context. Advances in correlative workflows, cryo-focused ion beam preparation, and computational reconstruction support improved throughput, reproducibility, and statistically robust analysis across diverse biological systems.