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Dataerai can pull cryo-EM / cryo-ET imaging datasets from the Electron Microscopy Public Image Archive (EMPIAR), EMBL-EBI’s public archive of raw electron-microscopy image data, into one of your projects as metadata-first assets. The entry’s metadata — title, authors, release date, imaging details — is copied into Dataerai so it’s searchable and shareable alongside your own data. The image data is not copied: clicking Download on an imported asset takes you straight to the entry’s data on EBI’s servers.
Imported assets are metadata-first: they describe and link to data that lives on EMPIAR. Nothing is stored in your Dataerai allocation, so importing doesn’t consume your quota.
One EMPIAR entry (an accession such as EMPIAR-10002, or the bare number 10002) imports as one asset. Because an EMPIAR entry is a single deposited dataset — often hundreds of gigabytes to terabytes of micrographs across a directory tree, with no single “download” file — the asset’s Download opens the entry’s anonymous data directory on EBI (https://ftp.ebi.ac.uk/empiar/world_availability/<id>/), where you browse and download the individual image files directly from EMBL-EBI.

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Search EMPIAR

Open the Import from EMPIAR page and enter a search term, then Search.
  • The search is free text and matches entry titles — try ribosome, cryo-ET, or a protein name.
  • Results show Title, Type, and Files, with the entry accession and release date under each title.
  • Use Per page to trade clicks for a longer page; the page count reflects the full result set.

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Select and import

1

Select entries

Tick the entries you want — click a row, or press Space or Enter on it, to toggle its checkbox. The header checkbox selects or clears everything on the current page; your selection is kept as you page through results.
2

Choose the destination project

Paste the UUID of the project that should own the new assets into the Import into project field.
3

Import

Click Import. A single Import result panel summarizes how many entries were imported (and assets created), plus any that failed and why.
EMPIAR datasets are large (often terabytes). Download opens the entry’s data directory on EBI rather than streaming a single file — pick the specific images you need there. The files download anonymously over HTTPS directly from EMBL-EBI.
Because imported assets point at EMPIAR rather than your own storage, their data is only available while the EMPIAR entry is. If you need a durable copy under your control, download the files and upload them as regular assets instead.

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Next steps

Metadata-first assets

How assets that describe data elsewhere work in Dataerai.

Import from Zenodo

Pull public records from Zenodo the same metadata-first way.

Organize into collections

Group imported entries alongside your own data.

Search & discover

Find imported entries by title, type, and metadata.