Welcome to our new Smart Optical Microscopy (SOM) Node! 

We are delighted to announce that a new Node has joined Euro-BioImaging after stringent review by our Scientific Advisory Board and approval by the Euro-BioImaging Board. Located in Madrid, Spain, the Smart Optical Microscopy (SOM) Node is our seventh Node in Spain. Euro-BioImaging now includes 298 state-of-the facilities biological and biomedical imaging facilities organised into 40 Nodes across our 19 member states! 

Smart Optical Microscopy (SOM) Node is a multi-sited, multimodal Node including  the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas (CNIO), and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M). The Node is designed to provide cutting-edge services in advanced fluorescence microscopy, with a specific focus on smart microscopy, high-throughput imaging, and AI-powered bioimage analysis to automate and adapt imaging workflows and support quantitative, scalable, and reproducible microscopy applications across a broad range of biomedical and translational research fields.

The SOM Node combines expertise in experimental imaging and computational analysis and integrates high-end microscopy platforms (including robotic high-content screening systems with environmental control, confocal, super-resolution, and FLIM) with a high-end computational infrastructure. SOM has a strong record in automated acquisition for high-content imaging experiments and has recently specialized in the development of complex imaging workflows such as cyclic immunofluorescence and spatial biology protocols.

Services offered will span the full imaging pipeline, from experimental design and smart data acquisition to deep-learning-based image processing and quantitative interpretation to extract multidimensional data from biological samples, catering to users from academia, industry, and clinical research. The SOM Node has a particular expertise and focus on the provision of custom image analysis and AI tool development for bioimage analysis, including provision of advanced compute infrastructure.The team of UC3M was an active partner in the AI4Life Project coordinated by Euro-BioImaging, and the Node therefore offers the full integration of AI4Life resources, such as the BioImage.IO BioEngine/Hypa and the BioImage Model Zoo, to Euro-BioImaging users.   

With a complementary service offer to our new MAdMiC Node, also in Madrid, users will be able to benefit from access to the expertise of both of our Madrid Nodes. Soon, the technologies and expertise at SOM Node will be available to all researchers via the Euro-BioImaging web portal. 

“As a Euro-BioImaging Node, SOM contributes to a collaborative European ecosystem providing access to advanced imaging technologies, expertise, and FAIR data-driven workflows across academia, industry, and clinical research. For us, this goes beyond infrastructure—it’s about being part of a community that drives excellence, accessibility, and innovation in biomedical imaging” 

- Diego Megías SOM Node Coordinator