From Imaging Core to Center: Building WUCCI for Discovery and Innovation

Eduardo Rosa-Molinar, PhD
Professor of Cell Biology & Physiology, Neuroscience, and Imaging Science
Scientific Director, WashU Center of Cellular Imaging
WashU Medicine

WUCCI is in the early stages of a five-year effort to transition from a traditional imaging core to a center for discovery and innovation. Over the first two years, we have strengthened infrastructure, streamlined workflows, expanded sample preparation and analysis capabilities, and increased cross-disciplinary engagement. The next phase will focus on broader, stronger scientific partnerships, platform integration, workforce development, and reproducible workflows that support innovation. This transition will strengthen collaborative science and enhance the School of Medicine’s research environment. One example of this transition is my neuroscience research, in which advances in reagents and technology enable an integrated multimodal, multiscale, and multidimensional microscopy strategy to study trace and toxic metals in the human brain, brain tumors, and organoid systems, and to assess their relevance to brain function, tumor biology, and translational microscopy.

Rosa-Molinar has over 40 years of experience in adopting, developing and implementing imaging methodologies in both optical and electron microscopy. In addition, Rosa-Molinar runs a research program aimed at elucidating niche specialization of connexions in heterotypic electrical synapses found in neural microcircuits, and he utilizes optical and electron microscopy techniques to assay his research questions.