Ardan led the development of the EMPIAR public archive for raw EM image data, and since May 2017 has been Team Leader for Cellular Structure and 3D Bioimaging. Ardan joined EMBL-EBI in 2011 to manage the electron microscopy (EM) project and the EMDB archive for 3D EM structures, then to coordinate cellular structure and 3D bioimaging activities in the PDBe team. Before coming to EMBL-EBI he studied 3D structure at the small (cells and flouorescence microscopy) and even smaller (macromolecules and single particle cryo electron microscopy) scales at Imperial College in London. Ardan holds a Masters degree in Engineering Physics, and a PhD from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden involving the development of multi-colour confocal microscopy systems.