Creating Efficient Workflows for Electron Microscopy Laboratories with Automated Specimen Preparation

Electron microscopy (EM) is essential to the biological and biomedical sciences and clinical diagnostic pathology. Electron microscopy specimen preparation is laborious and time-consuming, with transmission EM (TEM) chemical preparation typically requiring 1–3 days, while volume electron microscopy (vEM) takes 3–5 days of tedious manual reagent exchanges every few minutes or hours. This places a considerable burden on laboratory scientists with the ongoing demand for TEM, and the rapidly growing demand for vEM due to its potential to revolutionize structural biology, connectomics, and related fields. This burden is exacerbated by a shortage of trained electron microscopy scientists as current staff retire, and few enter the workforce. This report provides four case studies to illustrate how automated and faster specimen preparation workflows using mPrep™ Automated Specimen Processors (ASP-1000™ and ASP-2000™, Microscopy Innovations, LLC) free electron microscopy staff in academic and pre-clinical research labs and a clinical pathology laboratory.