During the past two decades the importance of light microscopy increased tremendously in all types of biological research. In addition to the image acquisition at various types of microscopes, data handling and image analysis, now also in combination with artificial intelligence, is becoming more and more important.

Microscopes and support for image analysis is available for all research groups of the Biozentrum
The Imaging Core Facility (IMCF) provides infrastructure for all microscopy techniques currently used in life sciences. The microscopes in the facility span the entire range from standard wide-field microscopy to confocal microscopy and super-resolution microscopy. The core facility started to operate in autumn 2011. There are 5 point scanning confocal microscopes, 3 spinning disk confocal microscopes, 5 wide-field microscopes, a light-sheet microscope, a slide scanner and a 3D-SIM super-resolution microscope available. The aim of the IMCF is not only to provide the facility users with well-maintained modern microscopy systems and quality control but also theoretical and technical support. Also, the IMCF is constantly striving to develop and adapt new microscopy techniques and image analysis routines.

Areas of interest
Besides the microscopy service for the Biozentrum, research at the IMCF focuses on the development of (i) optimal system performance in terms of image acquisition speed and experimental flexibility thereby enabling users to do all types of experiments under optimal conditions, (ii) image analysis and automation solutions, and (iii) a data storage and database solution to assure data management accrding to the FAIR principles (in collaboration with Research IT).