Mervyn Miles is currently Emeritus Professor of Physics, School of Physics, University of Bristol and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was one of the UK pioneers of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) and in particular its development and application to biological systems. In the mid-1980s he was one of the first researchers to apply scanning tunnelling microscopy to protein imaging. He went on to apply atomic force microscopy (AFM) to a range of biological systems, first at the Institute of Food Research in Norwich, and then, from 1990 in Bristol. On moving to Bristol, he started to work on development of SPM techniques, first scanning near field optical microscopy, and then AFM. After developing liquid Q-control, a method for enhancing force sensitivity for biological imagine, he went on to pioneer high speed AFM. This is one of the major roadblocks in the applicability of AFM, both for following processes and for rapid surface analysis and industrial applications, and the Miles group has been one of the two leading groups in this field in the world (the other being that of Prof Toshio Ando, Kanazawa University, Japan). The approaches taken by Mervyn elegantly side-stepped some of the traditional barriers to high-speed scanning, and are just now, fifteen years later, starting to be incorporated into commercial laboratory machines. 

Dame Pratibha Gai is internationally recognised as a pioneer in the use of environmental transmission electron microscope (ETEM) particularly with application to catalysts.  She has published over 300 refereed scientific papers in leading journals and 9 co-authored and edited books and journal issues and numerous invited lectures globally. 

Her awards include the L’Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science award as the 2013 Laureate for Europe, and the Institute of Physics 2010 Gabor Medal and Prize for in-situ atomic resolution-environmental transmission electron microscopy (ETEM).  She is Fellow of Institute of Physics, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).  She was appointed a Dame (DBE) in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to chemical sciences and technology.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2017, for his contribution to solving structures by cryoEM and single particle image processing, for his particular contribution of image processing to this technique.

For his pioneering work on the quantitative applications of electron microscopy to the measurement of strain fields at precipitates and dislocations, and the study of energetics and growth kinetics of damage clusters in irradiated materials. In addition, his work on the application of transmission electron microscopy and notably scanning TEM (STEM) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) to metals, diamond, nuclear materials and semiconductors.

His extraordinary contributions to the field of Light microscopy, leading to the development of the first commercial STED microscope in 2006. He received a Nobel Prize for ‘the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy’ in 2014.

For pioneering the development of cryo-electron tomography and his seminal contributions to our understanding of the structure and function of the cellular machinery of protein degradation, in particular the proteasome.

For his numerous contributions to the field of electron microscopy, including contributions to our understanding of high-resolution TEM, STEM, convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and electron energy-loss spectroscopy. His recent work in the area of X-ray imaging and lens-less imaging, and the study of protein structure and dynamics by femtosecond X-ray diffraction. 

For the development of new electron microscopy methodologies, and the application of electron microscopy to further the understanding of semiconductor nanostructures and functional nanomaterials. Frances has pioneered the development of electron microscopy in liquid environments, developing novel liquid cells for TEM.

For her work as one of the leaders of the “Resolution Revolution” in the Cryo EM field. She has been one of the early adapters of the Direct Electron Detectors and as part of NRAMM worked on the development of Leginon, an automated software for image acquisition of cryo EM images. 

For his significant contribution to the field and to the popularisation of microscopy and biology. His work in plant physiology on plant secretion gave rise to the new science of phytoremediation. He has published on the microscopy of forged photographs, food science, microbiology, forensic analysis, and cell microscopy and blood coagulation. 

For his pioneering experimental work on the properties on nan-structured semiconducting materials, determined primarily by the combined use of various transmission electron microscopy techniques.

After introducing the concept of forces acting between the tip and surface in scanning tunnelling microscopy, leading directly to Binnig’s invention of AFM, he has made many influential discoveries in this field, including the implementation of a novel AFM using sub-A modulation, allowing force gradients to be imaged directly with atomic resolution and to obtain mechanical characterisation of individual chemical bonds.

For his pioneering use of electron tomography beyond the nanometre scale, establishing the technique as a keen tool in materials characterisation and for extending the application of precession electron diffraction to materials with particularly valuable properties. 

For his numerous contributions to the field of microscopy including the development of PALM (photoactivated localisation microscopy) and his further development of PALM to image multiple fluorophores. His development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy and more recently, lattice light-sheet microscopy; which allows gentle imaging of molecules to embryos with a high spatiotemporal resolution.

Working at the forefront of live-cell imaging in plant science, he applied spinning disc confocal microscopy to measure plant molecular cell dynamics, assembling his own instrument from scratch.

For his contributions to plant science, including publishing the first report suggesting a co-alignment of microtubules with cell wall cellulose microtubules.

Contributed to both the UK cytometry community and worldwide education with his Distance Learning Course in Flow Cytometry as well as founding numerous committees and groups of flow cytometrists.

Methods devised by her research group were instrumental in advancing FCS from being a highly specialist, advanced technique, to one which has been commercialized and used in microscopy labs worldwide.

Her key contribution to biology and the single-molecule field is STORM (Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy). This single molecule technique has revolutionalised our ability to observe detail in cells using light microscopy.

Responsible for a number of seminal advances in the theory and quantitative interpretation of high-resolution transmission electron microscope images.

For his work in the development of aberration-corrected electron microscopy, allowing the observation of individual atoms with picometer precision, thus revolutionizing materials science.

Played a pivotal role in the development of the fluorescence activated cell sorter by including apparatus to allow the detection of fluorescently tagged  antibodies  on live or fixed cells with the  droplet  sorting capability, allowing isolation of such cells based on those characteristics

A leading expert in electron microscopy, his work spanned many aspects of microscopy, including the theory of electron diffraction & imaging, the study & application of beam damage effects, and the development & applications of a broad range of electron microscopy techniques.

Played a key role in the teaching and education of haematologists, particularly in the use of light microscope and flow cytometry immunophenotyping in the diagnosis of leukaemia and lymphoma.

One of the early pioneers of Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy, developing a home-built STM instrument that provided some of the very first images of metal surfaces at atomic resolution and at highly elevated temperatures.

Designed and built the first correctors for spherical aberration for the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) configuration that showed an improvement over the uncorrected performance.

Used microscopy to understand organelle dynamics and inheritance strategies, leading the field in this area, she was a pioneer of the use GFP in live cell imaging, and her work in the development of photoactivatable GFP, spurred on the new microscopical development of PALM.

Described how Rho regulates the assembly of focal adhesions and stress fibres in cells while Rac regulates growth factor induced membrane ruffling and lamellipodial extension.

Her work in the study of macromolecular machines by electron microscopy led to an understanding of how proteins fold in vivo. She went on to create a world-renowned centre for electron cryomicroscopy at Birkbeck College.

His work led to the development of the first in vitro assay for myosin movement. This technique is now routinely used in laboratories worldwide to measure the ability of molecular motors to move along their tracks.

Key in the development of confocal microscopy, his academic patents were used in the development of the Carl Zeiss LSM series. Helped develop 4Pi microscopy and pioneered light-sheet based fluorescence microscopy which is still in its infancy but already enabling high impacting research.

Involved at all levels in the development and design of the first Stereoscan SEMs.

A pioneer in the applications of high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), and more recently in the applications of field emission gun HRTEM.

Helped to develop confocal microscopy into a practical instrument and demonstrated its potential using fluorescent stained biological samples.