Paula Sampaio, who is often seen walking through the corridors of the IBMC with a screwdriver, was a visiting scientist in the EMBL Cell Biology and Biophysics Gonzalez Group from 1995 to 2001. While responsible for maintaining the first Leica confocal microscope at EMBL and teaching scientists how to use it, Paula was also running the fledgeling IBMC’s server on her laptop!

“EMBL gave me an overview of how a big institute works, and this has been very useful to help to improve IBMC organisation,” she says. “Besides inspiring me to build the microscopy unit at IBMC, it was a great experience scientifically.”

It was her interest in technical equipment – microscopes in particular – which led her to set up the IBMC’s open access Advanced Light Microscopy Facility in 2004, where they now have 100 users a year.

Paula is also a Senior Scientist in the lab of IBMC Director Claudio Sunkel. “It has been very important for me to divide my time between services and research”, she says. “I don’t think you can really understand and appreciate the requirements of the facility users, and push forward the need for microscopes, if you’re not doing research”.