Euro-BioImaging Finland is a consortium made up of high-quality imaging facilities from all over Finland, representing imaging technologies covering all applications from molecules to humans. The consortium kicked off the renewed activities by celebrating the recent funding of about 28 million euros from the Research Council of Finland and host organizations to support its development over the next five years.
With the funding, Euro-BioImaging Finland will develop new imaging technologies and services, and new methods based on artificial intelligence.
The funding is related to the infrastructure being selected to the national roadmap of research infrastructures 2025-2028. In addition, Euro-BioImaging Finland was chosen as one of six Finland's highest quality infrastructures, so called lighthouses - forerunners with broad societal impact.
Euro-BioImaging Finland consists of the best imaging units from seven universities and three university hospitals. The services of the research infrastructure cover 56 technologies ranging from laser microscopy of individual molecules to PET imaging of an entire human.
From the University of Helsinki, two HiLIFE research infrastructure platforms are part of the Euro-BioImaging Finland consortium. Helsinki BioImaging (HBI) and Helsinki in vivo Animal Imaging Platform (HAIP) develop activities in Meilahti, Viikki and Kumpula campuses.
"The University of Helsinki funding, over 8 million euros in total, will enable strategic investments into state-of-the-art biological and medical imaging modalities at all scales”, says Elina Ikonen, Chair of Helsinki BioImaging.
“This new funding will significantly enhance the University of Helsinki's multimodal translational imaging capabilities, enabling real-time analysis of dynamic physiological and disease processes in tissues”, says Pipsa Saharinen, Chair of the Helsinki In Vivo Imaging Platform.
All services of Euro-BioImaging Finland are openly accessible to everyone. Annually, the infrastructure is used by thousands of scientists around Finland and the world, and dozens of companies ranging from small startups to international pharma giants.
“This will support both cutting-edge fundamental research and translational applications. As part of this effort, our unit contributes to several EU-funded and other international multidisciplinary collaborative research projects and collaborates closely with HUS clinicians to apply imaging technologies in studying the biology and drug responses of patient cells", says Vilja Pietiäinen, the head of the FIMM High Content Imaging and Analysis core unit.
The infrastructure is coordinated by Turku BioImaging, a joint unit of Åbo Akademi University and University of Turku, and it belongs to the pan-European Euro-BioImaging organization. In addition to Euro-BioImaging Finland, Finland hosts the entire international Euro-BioImaging infrastructure, with the headquarters in Turku leading the international organization operating in 19 countries.
“One can say with good reason that Finland is a “superpower” of imaging”, says Euro-BioImaging Finland director Pasi Kankaanpää from Turku BioImaging.
“Euro-BioImaging Finland is now larger than ever before, and for the first time biological and medical imaging operate very closely together, with joint funding”, says Kankaanpää.