Imaging companies in Europe joined forces with life scientists at the Euro-BioImaging meeting Held in Hamburg, Germany on 14 November for a permanent relationship.
Last week several firms including Leica, Nikon, Zeiss, FEI, Olympus, and Photometrics said they formed an open industry board linked to the meeting. The board aims to facilitate interaction between the imaging industry and its academic users in order to improve industry's understanding of users' needs, Olympus said in a statement.
The all-Europe research infrastructure will comprise imaging facilities, known as nodes, throughout the continent that will open their doors to all life science researchers, providing them with access to state-of-the-art imaging equipment and hosting training sessions, the board said.
The first board chair, Christoph Thumser from Leica, said that imaging companies are motivated to establish closer interaction with users and to contribute to training that ensures the best use of imaging equipment.
"Euro-BioImaging nodes are for us the perfect test sites for novel instruments and technologies -- their highly-skilled technical staff can test robustness and technical operation of the instruments while working on a wide range of samples and research applications from visiting Euro-BioImaging users," added board Vice Chair Peter Drent from Nikon, in a statement.
Euro-BioImaging has been embraced by the governments of 17 European countries. The first generation of nodes is expected to be chosen by next year, opening access to the research community, according to the board.
