METEOR is the third DELMIC innovation to receive the Microscopy Today Innovation Award, following the earlier successes of SECOM and DELPHI earning the same title in 2013 and 2015, respectively. With our solutions, we are committed to making microscopy a more powerful, more accessible, and easy technique. At Delmic Cryo, our goal is to unlock the potential of cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) to enable researchers to unravel the secrets of the building blocks of life more easily. Their work inspires us to create the next-generation integrated and automated cryo systems. It is a great honor for us to receive this Innovation Award and it inspires us to continue to innovate.

Last October, we launched the world-first commercially available integrated cryo-fluorescence light microscope (cryo-FLM), METEOR. Aimed at optimizing the cryo-ET workflow, METEOR is integrated top-down in a scanning electron microscope (SEM). It helps to significantly reduce complicated transfer steps and increase lamella sample yield.

METEOR enables an unprecedently efficient cryo-ET workflow by removing the risks of sample (ice) contamination during the transfer steps. Researchers can easily confirm the presence of the region of interest (ROI) in the lamella directly during and after the cryo-focus ion beam milling. With METEOR, cryo samples can be prepared straightforwardly in the SEM chamber in only 7 fabrication steps, from loading the sample to re-inspecting the sample after the milling process.

The first METEOR system has been implemented at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany.