Leonel Malacrida’s journey to advanced bioimaging started during his Ph.D. research in biophysics in Uruguay. He first studied lung surfactant—a biofilm coating the lung interior that enables us to breathe—and wanted to understand this biological material at the molecular level. During his postdoc at the Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics at the University of California, Irvine, he delved into opportunities using advanced microscopy to evaluate biology quantitatively. He developed several methods and instrumentations for advanced microscopies, such as the Multidimensional Phasor approach, connectivity maps, and sideSPIM. Leonel is particularly interested in developing methods to image cells hidden in deep layers of tissues not accessible to regular microscopes. As an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine at the Universidad de la República of Uruguay, he recently established the Advanced Bioimaging Unit, a world-class core facility for developing novel instrumentation and providing services and training to researchers throughout Uruguay and the region. In 2020 he joined the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative as part of their “Imaging Scientist” program to democratize access and train the next generation of young researchers in modern advanced microscopy. He is founder and Executive Committee of Latin America Bioimaging and serves as Manager Board member of Global Bioimaging and Scientific Advisory Board of Africa Bioimaging Consortium.

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