ELMI 2025

ELMI 2025 – European Light Microscopy Initiative Conference

Conference Overview

Founded in 2001, the European Light Microscopy Initiative (ELMI) was established as a network to promote light microscopy as an essential research tool and to enhance communication among scientists, imaging core facilities, and industry partners. Over the past two decades, ELMI has become a pivotal forum for microscopy enthusiasts, fostering collaboration and driving innovation in light microscopy techniques across Europe and beyond. Its mission remains to advocate cutting-edge imaging in the life sciences and unite the community around shared technological advances.

The 2025 ELMI conference marks a return to EMBL Heidelberg for the first time since 2010. EMBL is renowned for its tradition of excellence in biological imaging. It boasts world-class facilities like the EMBL Imaging Centre, which offers cutting-edge electron microscopy, super-resolution, and intravital microscopy services. By leveraging EMBL’s purpose-built Advanced Training Centre and Imaging Centre, ELMI 2025 promises attendees an immersive, hands-on experience. Participants can expect to be surrounded by state-of-the-art microscopes and imaging labs, taking full advantage of a venue designed to facilitate advanced scientific training and collaboration.

Highlights of ELMI 2025 include an international line-up of speakers, traditional company workshops, an extensive industry exhibition, and interactive sessions in a dedicated “community workshop” room. This means you’ll not only hear about the latest breakthroughs in microscopy, but also get to see technologies in action and engage directly with experts. The program is highly interactive – from panel discussions to live demos – all aimed at fostering learning and networking. Whether you are interested in new fluorescent probes or the latest in image analysis, the conference provides a rich environment to exchange ideas, explore emerging tools, and spark collaborations in the microscopy community.

Session Topics & Yokogawa CSU-W1 Relevance

ELMI 2025’s scientific program is organized around core session topics – Probes and Biosensors, Smart/Advanced Microscopy, Super-Resolution Microscopy, Tissue Imaging/Lightsheet, Imaging for Health, and Data Analysis. Each of these themes addresses a key aspect of modern imaging. A centerpiece of the exhibition will be the Yokogawa CSU-W1 spinning disk confocal unit, and for good reason: this advanced imaging system significantly benefits each of these topic areas. Below, we outline the session themes and discuss how the CSU-W1’s capabilities align with and enhance them.

Probes and Biosensors

In sessions on Probes and Biosensors, researchers will discuss fluorescent indicators and genetically encoded sensors that allow us to visualize biochemical events in real-time. Live-cell imaging of these delicate biosensors demands a sensitive and gentle imaging platform on cells. The Yokogawa CSU-W1 confocal is ideal here – its dual-disk design with microlens arrays significantly improves signal throughput (more fluorescence captured) while maintaining sharp optical sectioning. This high sensitivity ensures even dim FRET-based biosensors or low-expression probes can be detected with clarity. Equally important, the CSU-W1’s multi-beam spinning disk scanning spreads excitation light over hundreds of points, dramatically reducing phototoxicity and photobleaching in live cells. This means you can observe dynamic processes (calcium flux, second messengers, etc.) over longer durations without harming your cells – a critical factor for biosensor experiments that require time-lapse imaging. Furthermore, the system supports advanced modalities like Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) imaging to monitor molecular interactions inside living cells; an optional FRET mode on Yokogawa systems expands the range of assay choices for biosensor studies. By minimizing photodamage while maximizing signal, the CSU-W1 allows biosensor signals to shine, enabling more reliable and extended observation of cellular physiology.

Smart/Advanced Microscopy

The Smart/Advanced Microscopy theme covers automated and adaptive imaging techniques, high-throughput applications, and real-time image-based decision-making. The Yokogawa CSU-W1 directly empowers these approaches through its speed and integrability. Unlike point-scanning confocals that image one pixel at a time, the CSU-W1’s spinning disk scans hundreds of points simultaneously across the field, resulting in much faster imaging. This high speed (up to 200 frames per second in certain configurations​) enables researchers to capture fast biological events and large Z-stacks in a fraction of the time, essential for intelligent microscopy systems that might need to rapidly refocus or adjust parameters on the fly. The CSU-W1 is also fully motorized and computer-controlled, allowing it to be integrated into complex workflows. For example, motorized switching of pinhole size, emission filters, and camera ports is supported, so one can easily automate multi-modal experiments. In practice, an advanced microscope can automatically switch between imaging modes (confocal vs. widefield), change magnification or fluorescence channels, and even trigger on-the-fly analysis, all while the CSU-W1 delivers the images in real-time. These capabilities make the CSU-W1 a cornerstone for high-content screening systems and AI-driven acquisition schemes. Whether it’s an automated tiling of a tissue section or adaptive live imaging that tracks a moving object, the CSU-W1 provides the speed, flexibility, and minimal photobleaching required for next-generation “smart” microscopy.

Super-Resolution Microscopy

Modern biology often pushes beyond the diffraction limit of light, which is the focus of the Super-Resolution Microscopy sessions. Here, attendees will learn about techniques like SIM, STED, PALM/STORM, and other methods that achieve nanoscale resolution. Yokogawa’s CSU-W1 addresses this arena through its optional SoRa (Optical Pixel Reassignment) module – a super-resolution add-on that works with the spinning disk. The CSU-W1 SoRa system uses a specialized dual Nipkow disk (with microlenses on both illumination and detection disks) to reassign emitted photons with greater precision, effectively sharpening the image. This approach yields approximately 1.4× improvement in resolution (down to ~150 nm laterally) and up to 2× with deconvolution (~120 nm), bridging much of the gap to traditional structured illumination (SIM). Notably, it accomplishes this without sacrificing the speed or live-cell friendliness: imaging with CSU-W1 SoRa can still be done at up to 200 fps and with low phototoxicity, making it ideal for super-resolution live-cell imaging. In practical terms, what can be observed with a standard confocal (say, the dynamics of vesicles or cytoskeleton) can now be seen in greater detail using the same platform – fine structures like tiny clathrin-coated pits or microtubule details become clearer. At ELMI 2025, expect to see how instruments like the CSU-W1 integrate with super-res techniques: for example, combining spinning disk confocal with structured illumination patterns or micro-lens enhanced imaging to push resolution beyond the diffraction limit​. The takeaway is that the CSU-W1 gives researchers a convenient path to super-resolution – you can seamlessly switch from confocal mode to enhanced-resolution mode on one system, capturing fast, super-res data in real-time without lengthy post-processing. This synergy of speed and resolution will be a highlight in both the talks and live demos, showing how one can capture more detail from live cells than ever before.

Tissue Imaging / Lightsheet

Imaging thick tissues and whole organisms is a formidable challenge addressed in the Tissue Imaging/Lightsheet sessions. Lightsheet microscopy (SPIM) has revolutionized this field by illuminating specimens with a thin light sheet, achieving optical sectioning with minimal photodamage over long-term imaging. While light sheet techniques will be prominently featured, the Yokogawa CSU-W1 offers complementary strengths for tackling thick samples. Thanks to its optical design, the CSU-W1 can penetrate deeper into specimens than traditional confocals – it features wider pinhole spacing and reduced pinhole crosstalk, which enables clearer observation deeper into thick, scattering samples such as organoids or tissue sections. In other words, you can confocally section further into an organoid with a CSU-W1 before the image fades, compared to older confocals. This makes it valuable for 3D cell culture models and thick slices when you need subcellular resolution at depth. Moreover, because the spinning disk spreads the excitation, the CSU-W1 is gentle on samples; the multi-beam approach uses much lower laser power per focal point, significantly reducing phototoxic effects even during long exposures​. For intravital or long-term tissue imaging, this is crucial – you could, for example, follow the development of a living tissue explant or embryo over time with less bleaching. Some light sheet systems even integrate spinning disk detectors to capture images, capitalizing on their confocality for thicker regions. At ELMI 2025, you’ll see how CSU-W1 complements light sheet microscopy. While a light sheet can give an overview of a whole organism with minimal light dose, the CSU-W1 can zoom in on regions of interest, providing higher resolution 3D data from deeper layers than a standard confocal could. Together, these approaches enable multi-scale imaging of tissues – and the CSU-W1 stands out as the confocal tool of choice for anyone who needs to image into thick specimens without compromising viability.

Imaging for Health

The Imaging for Health sessions will showcase applications of microscopy in medicine – from disease modeling in organoids and live-cell drug screening to clinical imaging techniques. A recurring theme is the need for physiologically relevant imaging: observing cells and tissues in conditions that mimic the human body, often over extended time frames, to understand disease progression or drug responses. The Yokogawa CSU-W1’s heritage is deeply rooted in live-cell, medically oriented research. Yokogawa’s spinning disk technology was initially developed to enable confocal imaging of live samples while minimizing phototoxicity and bleaching​– exactly the requirement for sensitive long-term health-related studies. Because of this gentle imaging capability, the CSU-W1 (and systems built around it) can keep cells alive and happy for days, allowing, for example, multi-day timelapse imaging of cancer spheroids or stem-cell derived organoids in a drug trial. The CSU-W1 can be integrated into high-content imaging platforms (like Yokogawa’s CellVoyager series) that incubate cells and automatically image dozens of fields or even multiple well-plates over time. This means drug discovery or toxicology researchers can run large-scale imaging screens – imaging hundreds of wells, multiple time points – with confidence that the imaging process won’t skew the cellular responses. Microscopy is truly at the heart of such high-content screening and precision medicine efforts, as it provides the functional readouts (cell behavior, morphology changes, etc.) that other assays often miss. With its large field of view and option for two cameras, the CSU-W1 can capture more cells per image and multiple channels simultaneously, speeding up data collection for clinical researchers. At the conference, you might see case studies of how spinning disk confocal imaging is used in disease modeling and drug development – for instance, imaging patient-derived tumor organoids to test drug efficacy or tracking immune cell interactions in live tissues. The CSU-W1’s ability to maintain focus (with hardware autofocus) and environmental control (when mounted on an incubation microscope) further supports these health-related applications by ensuring robust, repeatable imaging conditions. In summary, for “Imaging for Health,” the CSU-W1 provides a reliable, high-throughput, yet gentle imaging solution, enabling medical researchers to gather rich imaging data critical for understanding and treating disease.

Data Analysis

Last but not least, the Data Analysis sessions will delve into how we handle the deluge of data modern microscopes produce. Techniques discussed will include computational image analysis, machine learning for feature extraction, and data management for large 3D/4D datasets. High-speed confocal systems like the CSU-W1 contribute heavily to “big data” in biology – a single multi-channel 3D timelapse from a CSU-W1 can be tens of gigabytes of information. The good news is that analysis software has evolved in parallel. The Yokogawa CSU-W1 integrates with powerful imaging software (such as Nikon NIS-Elements or SlideBook) that now leverage AI-based tools for image processing and analysis. For example, modern confocal platforms can apply trained neural networks to instantly remove noise and haze from images, yielding clearer results without manual intervention. This means that even as you acquire images at blazing speeds, an AI denoising algorithm can clean them up in real-time or batch-process them afterwards, greatly improving signal-to-noise for downstream analysis. Additionally, automated 2D/3D deconvolution and object detection can be pipelined so that large CSU-W1 datasets are analyzed efficiently. In the Data Analysis sessions, expect to see demonstrations of software that can track hundreds of cells through dozens of time points, or segment complex 3D structures, all accelerated by AI and high-performance computing. The CSU-W1’s compatibility with these AI-driven analysis workflows means users can seamlessly go from image acquisition to quantitative results. Yokogawa’s systems, for instance, support export to formats readable by open-source analysis tools and can be complemented by modules like General Analysis 3 (GA3), which provide an analysis pipeline with AI capabilities for tasks like cell counting and phenotype classification. All of this transforms raw images into insights. Attendees interested in data analytics will learn how to manage confocal datasets (e.g., using on-the-fly maximum intensity projections to shrink data size​) and how the latest software can leverage artificial intelligence to extract meaningful biological information from CSU-W1 images. By combining advanced hardware with smart analysis, researchers can focus on discovery rather than drowning in data.

Meet Yokogawa at ELMI 2025!

ELMI 2025 is an exciting convergence of technology and science, and we look forward to meeting you there. Join us in Heidelberg from June 3–6, 2025, and be part of this vibrant microscopy community. Whether you are a seasoned imaging specialist or new to advanced microscopy, our team is eager to connect, schedule a demonstration for the capabilities of the Yokogawa CSU-W1, and explore how it can accelerate your discoveries. See you at our booth – let’s push the boundaries of light microscopy together!