May 2026

vEM Newsletter

volume electron microscopy

Exciting News: volumeEM Community Joins the Superbloom Family!

We are thrilled to announce that the volumeEM Community has entered into a fiscal sponsorship partnership (FSP) with Superbloom Design, and we couldn't be more excited about what this means for our future. Fiscal sponsorship means that Superbloom, as an established nonprofit, provides us with the legal, financial, and administrative infrastructure we need to operate and access funding without the burden of setting up and running our own standalone organization. Superbloom's fiscal sponsorship program is an ecosystem of projects united by shared values, shared infrastructure, and collective impact, and that ethos resonates deeply with everything we stand for. Like us, Superbloom is committed to amplifying underrepresented voices in technology and centering people, values that mirror our own dedication to making vEM techniques open and accessible to researchers everywhere.

This partnership is a true game-changer, freeing our dedicated volunteers from organizational overhead so they can focus on what matters most: building community, expanding access to vEM techniques, and advancing science. This is a pivotal moment for vEM, and we see enormous potential ahead. To learn more about Superbloom and the remarkable ecosystem of public-interest projects they support, visit their website. If you have questions, contact us at vemcommunity@gmail.com. For additional information and future updates about the fiscal sponsorship partnership, please visit the volumeEM Community’s Fiscal Sponsorship page on our website.

We would like to extend a huge thank you to our supporters and initial contributors, whose generous contributions made it possible for us to transition to sustainable operations as a FSP of Superbloom.

If you or your organization would like to support the volumeEM Community Initiative's FSP, please visit our donations page or contact us at vemcommunity@gmail.com.

Registration Now Open: 2026 volumeEM Technology Forum

Registration is now open for the 2026 volumeEM Tech Forum, taking place October 11-15, 2026, at Peking University in Beijing, China. Please visit the meeting website to register.

Building on the success of the inaugural 2024 Tech Forum at Harwell Campus in the UK, the 2026 meeting will bring together the global vEM community to showcase advances in microscopy, specimen preparation, correlative imaging, automation, and AI-driven software development.

The program will include technical talks, posters, challenge panels, live demonstrations, and the annual hybrid vEM Town Hall, along with a hands-on demonstration day at the Huairou National Imaging Center.

Confirmed keynote speakers include:

Thomas Deerinck
Professor Ji Wei
Professor Yoshi Kubota
Professor Hua Yunfeng
Dr. Michele Darrow

Scientific content will span a wide range of themes, including correlative and allied imaging techniques; downstream uses of volumetric data; molecular targeting and probes; automation across the vEM workflow; sample preparation improvements; future technologies and what's on the horizon; vEM in pathology and translation; large volume and large-scale data with AI; integration of multi-modal, multi-scale volumetric data; and applications of vEM.

The meeting will also include interactive Challenge Panel Sessions on the following topics: vEM Pain Points, What is vEM?, and Big Data, Big Problems.

Key Dates

Early Bird Registration Deadline: July 17, 2026

Abstract Submission Deadline: July 31, 2026

Travel bursaries will be available for early-career researchers and long-distance attendees.

The meeting is organized by Alice Liang, Kirk Czymmek, Michele Darrow, and Paul Verkade, with local organization led by Qiang Guo, Kun Song, Guopeng Wang, and Yiqun Liu at Peking University.

Please visit the meeting website for more information. A registration guide is also available here.

Tackling Volume EM Image Processing Challenges

Alejandra Sanchez-Erostegui, Thermo Fisher Scientific

You know Volume EM delivers powerful 3D insights, but getting from raw data to reliable results isn’t always straightforward. Large datasets, noisy images, misaligned stacks, and segmentation bottlenecks can all slow progress and impact data quality.

In this on-demand webinar, Introduction to Volume EM: From Image Acquisition to Analysis, we focus on how to tackle these challenges through effective image processing. Explore practical approaches to preprocessing, including bad-slice handling, stack alignment, shear correction, curtaining removal, and normalization (critical steps to ensure accurate downstream analysis).

You’ll also see how advanced tools like Amira Software support visualization, AI-based segmentation, and quantitative analysis, helping streamline workflows and reduce manual effort. Discover how automation and AI can accelerate segmentation, from months to hours, while improving consistency and reproducibility. Watch now.

Freeze-substitution without Liquid Nitrogen

Xavier Heiligenstein, Yann Bret, Frederic Eyraud, Chie Kodera, François Germain, Martin Belle, CryoCapCell, France.

Revolutionize Your Electron Microscopy Workflow with Our Compact Freeze-Substitution Unit

Preserving ultrastructure with unmatched quality is critical for electron microscopy—but traditional freeze-substitution methods are slow, resource-intensive, and cumbersome. Typical cycles take 3 to 10 days, consuming up to 30 liters of liquid nitrogen every 3 days just to maintain temperatures between -90°C and 0°C. Worse, bulky equipment doesn’t fit in standard fume hoods, despite the use of highly toxic chemicals, and the lack of built-in agitation (Reipert et al., 2018) means missing out on breakthroughs that could reduce processing time to 3 hours or less (McDonald & Webb, 2011), or optimize fluorescence preservation with In Resin Fluorescence protocols (Peddie et al., 2014).

We’ve changed the game.

Our innovative, compact Freeze-Substitution Unit leverages a thermodynamic heat exchange pump to eliminate liquid nitrogen dependency reducing operational complexity and overhead, while fitting seamlessly under a conventional fume hood. With native agitation technology, it enables fast or hybrid protocols, so you can achieve superior results in a fraction of the time—without compromise.

Faster. Safer. Smarter.

What is a Tech Bite?

Tech Bites are short, focused articles that share practical insights and innovations valuable to the vEM community. Published quarterly, the vEM Community Initiative newsletter provides a platform to share insights and reach a wider audience. Tech Bite contributions help support the newsletter and sustain the vEM Community Initiative long term.

Interested in contributing a Tech Bite for an upcoming issue? Please get in touch!

vEM Events

Title	Start Date	End Date	Location
Microscopy & Microanalysis 2026	August 2, 2026	August 6, 2026	Milwaukee, WI, USA
The 21st International Microscopy Congress	August 31, 2026	September 4, 2026	Liverpool, UK
International Workshop on Volume Electron Microscopy: Imaging Across Scales	September 22, 2026	September 24, 2026	Belo Horizonte, Brazil
France Volume EM Scientific Days	September 28, 2026	September 29, 2026	Bordeaux, France
vEM Technology Forum	October 11, 2026	October 15, 2026	Beijing, China

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