WORKSHOP FOR TRAINING MICROSCOPE ADMINISTRATORS IN THE SETUP AND USE OF SERIALEM

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. This year, we added an additional workshop that targeted microscope administrators for the setup and use of SerialEM. The workshop was held December 6-8, 2006 where we hosted 6 participants from the following institutions: University of Calgary, Baylor College of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center, New York Structural Biology Center, Brandeis University, and The Weizmann Institute. The number of participants was kept deliberately small mainly to give each participant enough time to really learn how to use SerialEM on the microscopes. In addition, we could only put 3 additional people in each microscope room comfortably. The workshop was designed to have a morning lecture and an afternoon with intensive hands-on experience. The first day focused on introducing SerialEM and setting up for automated tilt-series acquisition. The second day focused on low-dose applicationsincluding cryo-electron tomography, energy filtering, and the Navigator. Finally, the third day focused on using macros, calibration of SerialEM, and digital cameras. Each person received the lectures and handouts in both electronic and paper format so they could use those tools train their microscope facility users on how to use SerialEM. All participants gave favorable evaluations. In addition, valuable feedback was obtained from the participants on how to improve SerialEM. Three participants received extra training; one for high magnification tomography, and two for reconstruction of cryo tilt-series.