Cryo-EM Core Facility

National Institute Of Neurological Disorders And Stroke

Investigators

Abstract

During the fiscal year, we completed the 200kV cryo-electron microscope installation and the quality control determination, a months long project conducted by Thermo Fisher Scientific and us. We got a final result of a high resolution structure of 2.3 angstrom on a standard biological sample apoferritin by our well-behaved microscope and data analysis. We also set up the sample preparation devices and procedures for the users in our structural biology community at National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Our facility is ready to assume a high-load of data collections, user-training sessions and assist the structural biology studies. Since summer, we have been experiencing a series of hard-ware problems on our microscope. A few hardwares, such as air-bags that floats the microscope column and compu-stage that precisely control the grid position, were found in failure when it is being tested on our side. Thermo Fisher Scientific and our facility have been working together to address those problems. It's a complicated work to erun the microscope. We believe that we will finally bring back the well-conditioned microscope in a few weeks. In addition, our facility is also working on the Linux Operation System workstation setup. We are expecting more expertised supports.