The Light Microscopy Group is part of EMBL’s Cell Biology and Biophysics Unit.  The group has contributed extensively to the developments of Confocal Fluorescence Microscopy, Confocal 4Pi Fluorescence Microscopy, Confocal Theta Fluorescence Microscopy, Optical Tweezers, Laser Cutters, Photonic Force Microscopy (PFM) and Light Sheet based Fluorescence Microscopy (LSFM, DSLM, SPIM).  All its instruments have been applied during numerous applications in the modern sciences, which range from Physics, via Optics and Biophysics, to Cell and Developmental Biology.  The work of the group is documented in more than 200 papers and numerous patents.

Current technical projects entail novel LSFMs, a complete and efficient image processing pipeline for three-dimensional, time-dependent, multiple-view data sets and very advanced, massively parallelized three-dimensional image segmentation algorithms.

A long-term interest is certainly the development of laser-based instruments and their application in projects that relate to the observation and the manipulation of large biological specimens such as fish, insects and mice.  However, an important goal that has always guided the directions of the group's work is to keep the specimens under conditions that are physiologically relevant.  The group is, therefore, heavily involved in a physiologically relevant approach to Quantitative Biology.  Such efforts are currently referred to as Integrated Biology or Integrated Life Sciences.

The group has always collaborated extensively with EMBL’s scientists and sustains close contacts to many other locations throughout the world.

The Light Microscopy Group at EMBL is headed by Dr. Ernst H. K. Stelzer.