Sprecher
Beschreibung
Modern cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) experiments generate large imaging datasets along with extensive metadata. This metadata describes microscope configurations, acquisition parameters, and experimental conditions. At shared microscopy facilities, metadata is often spread across multiple vendor-specific acquisition tools. It is stored in different file formats and locations. As a result, metadata is frequently incomplete, inconsistently documented, and difficult to retrieve. This limits transparency, traceability, and the effective use of experimental context during data processing and interpretation.
We present an automated workflow for managing cryo-EM metadata at the Ernst-Ruska Centre (Forschungszentrum Jülich). The workflow captures metadata directly from microscope acquisition software and integrates it into SampleDB, an institutional metadata repository. Custom Python-based tools extract relevant metadata at the time of data generation. The metadata is transformed into structured records and linked to the corresponding raw imaging data. This shifts metadata handling from a manual, retrospective task to a systematic process embedded in routine data acquisition. By standardizing metadata capture and integration, the workflow improves completeness, reduces manual entry errors, and strengthens data traceability across the facility.
| Alternative Track | 9. Software Interoperability for (Meta)data Acquisition |
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