The NIF is an
Open Access Microscopy and Tissue Core

servicing the Boston area & beyond

 

The Neurobiology Imaging Facility is a completely open access light microscopy and tissue core located within the Neurobiology Department at Harvard Medical School.
Our mission is to advance research by providing services in optical imaging, tissue clearing, in situ hybridization as well as introduce new equipment and cutting-edge technology to the basic science community. We provide expertise, equipment and services that are costly, time consuming and technically difficult. Our core ensures consistency and precision. We are also a teaching facility that strives to provide learning opportunities to researchers in the greater Boston area.

The NIF currently offers use and training on MINFLUX super-resolution microscope. The system is a dual line (560/640nm) system capable of resolving single particles to 3nm in imaging mode and 1nm in particle tracking mode. Reach out to Michelle Ocana for details and sample prep protocols.

 

 

 

Featured Content

Call for Abstracts flyer for QBI

Call For Abstracts! QBI Workshop on multiplex image analysis & computational pathology

Call for Abstracts (Deadline: July 31st, 2026)
Abstract Submission Site is open: https://quantitativebioimaging.com/miacp2026/miacp-2026-abstract-submission/

The field of tissue multiplexing techniques, which encompass spatial proteomics and spatial transcriptomics, holds significant promise for basic, translational, and clinical biomedical research. Building on past years’ success, the 2026 edition of this QBI workshop will continue to cover the development and application of these techniques and the underlying technical issues related to the analysis of multiplex imaging data. We are also expanding the scope of the meeting to include computational pathology, which constitutes the analysis of traditional histological images, as it is closely related to the theme of this workshop.

We are soliciting abstracts on topics related to multiplex image analysis including but not limited to:

Cell/nuclear segmentation
Multimodal spatial-omics workflows
Clustering and dimensionality reduction
Data normalization strategies
Generative AI tools for cell detection/phenotyping
Spatial/cell-neighborhood analysis
Biomarker scoring & validation
Color normalization/variability in WSIs

Software features demo session*: The purpose of this special session is to provide a forum for software developers to showcase the technical features of their image analysis software by addressing a set of specific questions/technical issues using the 17plex image of human tonsil. We recognize that no software will be able to address all the issues. The objective is to demonstrate how best the technical issues can be addressed using your software tool. The speaker will have 15 minutes for the presentation. Q&A will be in a roundtable format at the end of the session where all speakers will be panelists. Commercial software providers are welcome to participate in this session. We request that they refrain from giving a marketing/sales type talk and strictly limit the content to technical topics.

Poster session: We will have a limited number of spots for posters, with a dedicated time slot for the poster session.

Short talks: To increase visibility for early career scientists (PhD students, postdocs and junior scientists), several regular contributed abstracts will be selected for short talks (15 min incl. Q&A) where the speaker can present the main highlights of their work.
Who should attend: New, intermediate & advanced end users of multiplex image analysis.

Registration deadlines:
Regular deadline: September 10th, 2026
Late/on-site registration: September 11th, 2026 onwards

Organizing Committee
Sripad Ram, Pfizer Inc.
Sara McArdle & Zbigniew Mikulski, La Jolla Institute of Immunology
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Seminar flyer for the Viventis SCAPE light sheet microscopy system, showing three fluorescent microscopy images of neuroendocrine tumour organoids in cyan, yellow, and magenta. Text highlights three benefits: fast volumetric imaging, reduced phototoxicity, and no special sample mounting required.

Leica Light Sheet Imaging Seminar: Viventis SCAPE

Leica will be hosting two upcoming local events to highlight their newest light sheet imaging capabilities.

On June 2nd from noon to 1pm, they will be hosting a lunch & learn at Whitehead Institute Auditorium (455 Main St, Cambridge). This will be an excellent opportunity to explore the full range of applications enabled by light-sheet imaging and to understand how Leica Viventis SCAPE surpasses the capabilities of traditional instruments on the market. Please sign up here: https://tinyurl.com/yvhsfwvn.
Lunch will be provided.

Then from June 15-25, they will be offering demos on the system installed at Whitehead. Please sign up for a demo time slot here: https://tinyurl.com/bd4ezdvm
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Imaging Contest 2023

Imaging Contest 2023

2023 NIF Imaging Contest

Are you images so stunning that you wish everyone could see some of your science? Enter our contest now by emailing your images to harvardnif@gmail.com

Prizes:
Most Scientific $200
Most Beautiful $200
Most Popular $200

Rules:
Your image must have been taken or rendered in the NIF in 2022 or 2023! Please do not submit any images that were entered previously in any imaging contest at HMS.
Your submission must include your name, equipment used, description of sample, and the name of your PI.

DEADLINE EXTENDED:
May 1st, 2023 at 11:59 PM

The NIF reserves the right to post any image as a promotional tool for the NIF, ie. Instagram, Twitter, posters etc.
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Neurobiology Imaging Facility

220 Longwood Ave.
Goldenson 242
Boston, MA 02115

For Cores that DO have users from the EU who use Core services while on EU territory (e.g. Download and use software from HMS in their home lab; VPN from the EU to HMS compute resources to perform data analysis…), please make sure that your data use policies are consistent with the EU requirements. If you have any questions please contact Scott_edmiston@hms.harvard.edu (DBMI; Director of Research Privacy and Security Compliance) or Joseph_zurba@hms.harvard.edu (HMS information security and IT compliance officer).

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