AMBER Postdoctoral Fellowship: PRISM: Platform for Robotic Imaging and Synchrotron Microscopy

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EMBL is Europe's life sciences laboratory - an intergovernmental organisation with more than 110 independent research groups and service teams covering the spectrum of molecular biology. It operates across six sites in Heidelberg (headquarters), Barcelona, Cambridge, Grenoble, Hamburg and Rome. Our mission is to perform basic research in molecular biology; train scientists, students and visitors at all levels; offer vital services to scientists in the public and private sectors within the member states; develop new instruments and methods; and engage actively in technology transfer. This post-doctoral position is part of the EU cofund research project AMBER, Advanced Multiscale Biological imaging using European Research infrastructures, will address scientific and sectoral gaps in biological imaging ranging from molecular, through cellular, to tissue, organ and organism levels of organisation, and is coordinated by LINXS Institute of advanced Neutron and X-ray Science. AMBER is funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) COFUND scheme. Around 8 postdocs will be recruited in the Final call with each fellowship lasting 36 months. AMBER has six core partners: Lund University/MAX IV, Sweden, the European Spallation Source (ESS), Sweden, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL), France, the International Institute of Molecular Mechanisms and Machines, (IMOL), Poland, and the Leicester Institute of Structural and Chemical Biology, United Kingdom. Your work may include clinical and biomedical projects. It may also include technique development work aimed at combining imaging techniques and data analysis to provide a more integrated picture of life processes in the context of health and disease. To be a postdoc fellow at the AMBER programme you will get unprecedented medical, biological, and methodological capabilities, with a profound potential impact for Europe's next generation of research and researchers. When you have completed the AMBER programme you will be extraordinarily well equipped to further your career in academia, at infrastructures, in the health and MedTech sectors, and beyond. For more information about the total announced post-doctoral positions within in the AMBER co-fund project please visit https://www.euraxess.se/jobs/437869 The interviews will start in October/November 2026. For more information about AMBER, application and evaluation process etc please visit: ambercofund.eu Your role While ESRF ID30B-a high-throughput, fully automated macromolecular crystallography (MX) beamline-is being equipped with a new MD3up goniometer to extend its capabilities toward X-ray microscopy applications, the upgraded S-TOMCAT and I-TOMCAT beamlines at the Swiss Light Source provide an ideal environment for high-resolution X-ray tomographic microscopy. These beamlines offer stable, high-flux imaging with submicron resolution, well suited to biological samples. PRISM (Platform for Robotic Imaging and Synchrotron Microscopy) builds on this foundation by placing precision robotisation at the centre of new, fully automated imaging workflows. The core of the project is the adaptation of the existing Flex robotic sample-changing system (Papp et al., 2017)-originally developed for MX applications-for the handling of X-ray microscopy samples. This approach replaces manual intervention with a reliable, continuous, and reproducible pipeline. Development of the new sample changer system will take place at EMBL Grenoble, followed by commissioning at the ESRF ID30B beamline. A finalised setup will then be installed at the PSI I-TOMCAT beamline, in collaboration with ARINAX. Biological specimens can thus be automatically loaded, positioned, and exchanged, ensuring consistent imaging conditions and enabling long, unattended acquisition sequences essential for large-scale studies. This robust automation significantly increases throughput while reducing errors and variability. Artificial intelligence within PRISM complements this robotic backbone and will evolve progressively in sophistication. Initially, AI will support tasks such as monitoring data quality and flagging potential anomalies during acquisition. As the project advances, more exploratory applications will be developed, including intelligent feature detection to trigger adaptive tuning of experimental parameters, as well as increasingly autonomous optimisation of scanning strategies. These forward-looking capabilities build upon the strong, reproducible framework established by robotisation, enhancing PRISM's performance without compromising reliability. By combining high-performance beamlines with robust automation and progressively evolving intelligent tools, PRISM will transform X-ray tomography into an accessible, high-throughput, and future-ready platform for the life sciences, enabling studies at a scale and consistency previously unattainable. You have a maximum 8 years after a doctoral degree (PhD), as

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