Robert Prevedel and Simone Mattei take the helm at EMBL’s Imaging Centre as it starts a new chapter

Robert Prevedel (left) and Simone Mattei are the new Heads of the EMBL Imaging Centre. Credit: Stuart Ingham/EMBL

Since 2021, the EMBL Imaging Centre has provided international scientists with access to advanced light and electron microscopy services, and it has become well-known for its community of experts who push imaging technology forward so researchers can make discoveries in biology and medicine.  

Recently, the facility that has played an important role in enabling the research activities and the training of many scientists worldwide has transitioned to new leadership: Robert Prevedel and Simone Mattei, two EMBL faculty who are now also serving as Heads of the EMBL Imaging Centre.

Since opening in 2021, the EMBL Imaging Centre has expanded its international reach and technology portfolio, supporting over 420 projects from 145 academic institutions, 31 companies, and 37 countries – including 25 of EMBL’s member states. This didn’t just mean people booking microscope time: the Centre runs a full-service model in which its experts comprehensively support researchers from sample preparation through imaging and data analysis.

Looking further ahead, Prevedel and Mattei want the Centre to grow into an even bigger hub for imaging innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration: bringing automation, cross-scale correlative imaging, and integrated, AI-enabled image analysis together so the latest tools reach the wider scientific community faster, and so new methods get translated into robust, service-ready workflows through partnerships with industry and other research infrastructures. Training and community-building stay central to that mission, since equipping the next generation of imaging experts is as much a part of the mission as building the instruments themselves.

“I think we’re at an exciting time at the EMBL Imaging Centre,” Prevedel said. “Our priority is to strengthen technology development and image analysis, so that our key speciality, correlative light and electron imaging across scales, continues to benefit our broad community. Also, we need to make our microscopes and analysis pipelines AI-ready, so that scientists can get from images to insight faster.” 

As an EMBL Senior Scientist, Prevedel has been a pioneer in the field. His innovative microscopy technologies enable scientists to see deeper inside living organisms than ever before, opening new windows into brain function, development, and disease. 

“We will build on the EMBL Imaging Centre’s strengths as a place where our users’ ambitious biological questions drive the next generation of imaging methods,” Mattei said. “Bringing together researchers, imaging experts, and technology developers has proven a successful formula for transforming emerging approaches into reliable tools for discovery – and our commitment to this approach is steadfast. Through open access and training, we will equip researchers worldwide with the methods and expertise to answer questions they cannot tackle today.”  

Mattei, an EMBL Team Leader, combines cryo-electron tomography with complementary imaging techniques to investigate how molecular machines operate inside cells. His group develops methods that connect molecular detail with cellular context and make these complex imaging approaches more efficient and accessible.

For industry and philanthropic partners, meanwhile, it’s a chance to help push that frontier further. For researchers, the EMBL Imaging Centre’s next chapter will bring different scales of microscopy, as well as automated, AI-powered analysis to reveal biology as it unfolds, from the molecular to the cellular. 

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Tags: imaging centre, mattei, prevedel