Volume EM Community

The Volume Electron Microscopy (vEM) Community is an international, open-science initiative that democratizes access to a powerful but historically inaccessible research technology. Volume EM, a 2023 Nature Methods Key Technology to Watch (along with CRISPR and James Watt Telescope), allows scientists to visualize the 3D ultrastructure of cells, organelles, and tissues at nanometer resolution, revealing biological complexity invisible to other methods. Until recently, this capability was concentrated in a small number of well-resourced institutions in wealthy countries, leaving most of the global research community locked out.

Founded in 2019 with support from the Wellcome Trust and later the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the vEM Community was built on a simple conviction: knowledge and expertise should be shared and accessible. We have grown from a single town hall of ~60 researchers to a global network of 300+ members spanning more than 80 core facilities across dozens of countries. Our community is run entirely through volunteer working groups of researchers, microscopists, data scientists, software developers, and industry partners who coordinate to share protocols, build open tools, run training programs, and reduce barriers to entry for underrepresented institutions.