New information from large tissue volumes to the smallest structures of the cell: what new methods and electron microscopy can do for your research.

This article presents an overview of microscopy and its ability to assist in understanding what happens in cells and tissues. From the 1960s to 1980s, electron microscopy was the best way to understand cell processes, but the advent in the mid-1980s of light microscopy and the ability to do fluorescence imaging displaced electron microscopy in this area. However, the 21st century has seen several improvements in electron microscopy that, along with the need for more detailed ultrastructural information, make it again very attractive in the study of cells, tissues, and organs, and electron microscopy has resumed its place as the preeminent method in understanding cell processes.