30.4.2025

IMAGES: Gautier Follain, University of Turku

Record-breaking funding for bioimaging in Finland introduces new opportunities

At the start of the year, Euro-BioImaging Finland, the Finnish bioimaging research infrastructure, specialising in advanced imaging technologies, received approximately 28 million euros in funding from the Research Council of Finland, along with other significant funding.

Euro-BioImaging Finland consists of imaging units in seven universities and three university hospitals. The services cover 56 technologies from laser microscopic imaging of individual molecules to PET imaging of an entire person.

The organisation is coordinated by Turku BioImaging, a joint unit of Åbo Akademi University and the University of Turku, and it is part of the European Euro-BioImaging organisation.

The new funding is linked to the selection of Euro-BioImaging Finland in the roadmap for Finnish research infrastructures 2025–2028. Euro-BioImaging Finland has also been selected as one of Finland’s “lighthouses”. These lighthouses represent Finland’s highest quality research infrastructures – pioneers with an extensive societal significance.  There are only six such lighthouses in Finland.

The funding will be used to develop new imaging technologies and services as well as artificial intelligence methods, including completely new applications for the needs of agriculture and Baltic Sea research.

The services of Euro-BioImaging Finland are openly available to everyone. Every year thousands of researchers from Finland and abroad, as well as numerous companies, use their services. In fact, more than 11% of all top-quality imaging in Europe is carried out in the infrastructure.

Finland is also the host of the international Euro-BioImaging infrastructure, lead from its headquarters in Turku.

“It is fair to say that Finland is a superpower in bioimaging,” says Pasi Kankaanpää, Director of Euro-BioImaging Finland.

From medical diagnostics to the identification of harmful plant species

Euro-BioImaging Finland plays a key role in pharmaceutical development and the diagnostics and treatment of diseases as well as in basic research in many disciplines.

The organisation produces 10 to 20 significant innovations annually, and the best of them are commercialised.

The kick-off meeting of the renewed Euro-BioImaging Finland was held on 4 April at the University of Helsinki.

“Euro-BioImaging Finland is now more extensive than ever before, and biological and medical imaging work closely together for the first time, with joint funding,” Kankaanpää explains.

Euro-BioImaging Finland is the only lighthouse lead from Turku.

Of the funding from the Research Council of Finland, just over 10 million will be allocated to Turku. The funds will be used to purchase new special microscopes for the Turku Bioscience Centre, to upgrade the PET Centre’s equipment and to develop Turku BioImaging’s interdisciplinary image analysis methods.

Turku BioImaging has also received an Aid for sustainable growth and vitality (AKKE) appropriation for the Saariston kuva project and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) for the Biogri project, totalling more than half a million euros. These projects develop bioimaging for Baltic Sea research and modern agriculture.

“This started when we noticed that we could identify plant species in drone images using the same artificial intelligence methods that we normally use to identify cancer cells in microscopy images,” Kankaanpää explains.

The new projects also introduce unprecedented opportunities for researchers to utilise bioimaging extensively, for example in the prevention of harmful species in agriculture and in reducing excessive nutrient flow to the Baltic Sea.

In the projects, methods and services are developed in cooperation with Italian experts, among others.

“It is amazing that we can expand Finland’s excellence in bioimaging to completely new areas that support society and the environment,” says Kankaanpää.