Better reporting is better science: Community-defined minimal reporting requirements for light microscopy
Incomplete reporting of microscopy methods undermines transparency, reproducibility, and data reuse. Despite recent initiatives, comprehensive, broadly endorsed, and accessible reporting guidelines are still lacking. Here, we present a bare minimal microscopy reporting requirements checklist that integrates human- and machine-readable input to provide clear, actionable guidance for researchers, reviewers, and publishers and to advance community standards in microscopy.
Authors
- Michael S. Nelson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0480-5597)
- Olaf Selchow (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-4110-9373)
- Michael Cammer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4930-1739)
- Ayse Aslihan Koksoy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3092-5410)
- Sergiy Avilov
- Hella Hartmann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7133-7474)
- Andrea Ravasio (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7835-5133)
- David J. Grunwald (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6784-6647)
- Nathalie Gaudreault (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9220-5366)
- Sathya Srinivasan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5386-8722)
- David C. A. Gaboriau (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4047-6487)
- Douglas J. Taatjes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1903-983X)
- Steffen Dietzel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5725-3242)
- Adam Parslow (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9868-6914)
- Penghuan Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5081-4334)
- Santosh Podder (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0576-4598)
- Orestis Faklaris (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5965-5405)
- Helena Jambor (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3397-1842)
- Thomas G. P. Guilbert
- Aurélie Cleret‐Buhot
- Mathias Hammer
- Josh Moore
- G. Nelson
- DeLaine D. Larsen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9689-8454)
- Eduardo Rosa‐Molinar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2057-8937)
- Britta Schroth‐Diez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4908-5952)
- John W. Peterson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5528-8561)
- Nitschke Roland
- Kirstin Vonderstein
- Alison J. North (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0577-7949)
- Gabriel G. Martins (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6506-9776)
- Cristina Bertocchi
- Nils Norlin
- Christa G Walther
- Ulrike Boehm
- Chloë van Oostende-Triplet
- Paula Montero Llopis
- Judith Lacoste
- Julia Fernandez-Rodriguez
- Nadia Halidi
- Sylvia Emmanuelle Le Dévédec
- Alexander L. Payne-Dwyer
- Luis Acevedo
- Caterina Strambio De Castillia
Institutions
- Oregon National Primate Research Center (US)
- University of Vermont (US)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Carl Zeiss (Germany) (DE)
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (US)
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute (AU)
- Osaka University of Economics (JP)
- University of Ottawa (CA)
- Institute of Science and Technology Austria (AT)
- University of Freiburg (DE)
- Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (CL)
- Queen Mary University of London (GB)
- University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (US)
- Duke University (US)
- Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune (IN)
- Lund University (SE)
- Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (PH)
- Washington University in St. Louis (US)
- Université Paris Cité (FR)
- Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine (US)
- NYU Langone Health (US)
- CellaVision (Sweden) (SE)
- GoHypersonic (United States) (US)
- Osaka Health Science University (JP)
- Institut Jacques Monod (FR)
- University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons (CH)
- Chrono Therapeutics (United States) (US)
- Noble Research Institute (US)
- Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (ES)
- Centre for Human Drug Research (NL)
- Centre for Genomic Regulation (ES)
- Elucid Bioimaging (US)
- Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (DE)
- Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics (DE)
- Allen Institute for Cell Science (US)
- Quantum Technologies (Sweden) (SE)
- Dublin City University (IE)
- University College London (GB)
- Imperial College London (GB)
- Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (PT)
- University of York (GB)
- China Jiliang University (CN)
- New York University (US)
- Université de Montréal (CA)
- Technische Universität Dresden (DE)
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
- Rockefeller University (US)
- Newcastle University (GB)
- University of Gothenburg (SE)
- Ottawa University (US)
- HTWG Hochschule Konstanz - Technik, Wirtschaft und Gestaltung (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The Journal of Cell Biology
- Published
- 2026-01-21
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.202601032
- Primary Topic
- Cell Image Analysis Techniques
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00