ZEISS Microscopy launches initiative to increase scientific research

ZEISS Microscopy, a foundation owned company that has been investing in the advancement of science for 175 years, has launched a new initiative to increase collaboration with scientists, through the ZEISS Microscopy Solutions Center, located in the Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute.

This location provides advanced training and development of specialized microscopy workflows for scientists to accelerate their research. The company will partner with leading research institutions like Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute Biomedical Research, and the FAU John D. MacArthur Campus to work closely with scientists and be present during their experiments, providing real-time feedback and making modifications to their hardware and software to make their lives easier.

The collaboration between Max Planck and ZEISS has already resulted in ground-breaking discoveries in neuroscience. By using ZEISS’ imaging technology and correcting for distortions, scientists were able to image ten different colours in a living brain, allowing them to study the neural activity encoding social memory. ZEISS plans to create similar partnerships and solution centres with other institutes and universities to amplify the voices of scientists and get their technology out to more people.

Mary Phillips, solutions marketing manager for neuroscience at ZEISS Microscopy North America, said: "Our main mission of supporting and advancing science is achieved by putting more collaborative resources into innovation. By partnering with research institutions and developing artificial intelligence machine learning models, we can translate images into actionable data and disseminate this software to other labs to benefit from this work."

The creation of a solution centre continues to drive collaboration and techniques forward in the neuroscience field.

McLean Bolton, research group leader, Max Planck Florida Institute, said: "Having the people developing the technology in the same setting as the scientists addressing the question results in new ideas on how to get to the next discovery. That kind of interaction is necessary to step forward and accelerate discovery.”