120kV Cryo Transmission Electron Microscope

根据目前的提案，海德堡校区的两条电子显微镜研究线将得到大力加强：通过两个低温TEM（一个低端和一个中/高端），建立了严格的样品工作流程，这允许在我们现有的高端低温TEM上使用时间进行最终分辨率成像之前筛选大量样品进行单粒子分析（SPA）。SPA显微镜时间的这种扩展对于计划中的大分子生物化学教授职位是绝对必要的-这将进一步增加所有生物医学研究所日益增长的需求。与此同时，这种支持显微镜的筛选工作流程将减少我们现有高端冷冻仪器的工作量，并将腾出时间进行额外的冷冻电子断层扫描（CET）研究。随着雇用更多的初级教师，这是强制性的，以增加仪器的时间，这样的工作。我们最近升级了专用的高端低温TEM，配备了能量过滤后直接电子探测器，现在可以进行最先进的低温CET工作。然而，建立必要的低温薄层样品制备平台以在其细胞环境中成像大分子复合物，以及通过添加最先进的物理相位板技术来优化断层扫描数据收集也是最重要的。最后，后者的优化也将有助于任何大分子成像工作，特别是计划中的小蛋白质复合物研究。

With the current proposals two lines of electron microscopy studies will be strongly enhanced at Heidelberg Campus: With two more cryo TEMs (one low-end and one medium/high-end) a stringent sample workflow is established, which allows the screening of a large number of samples for Single Particle Analysis (SPA) before using time for ultimate-resolution imaging at our existing high-end cryo TEM. Such an expansion of microscope time for SPA is absolutely necessary for a planned professorship in macromolecular biochemistry – which will further add to the increasing demands of all biomedical institutes. At the same time, such a screening workflow on supporting microscopes will reduce the workload on our existing high-end cryo instrument and will free time for additional Cryo Electron Tomography (CET) studies. With the hiring of additional junior faculty it is mandatory to increase instrument time for such work. We recently upgraded our dedicated high-end cryo TEM with a post energy filter Direct Electron Detector, which now will allow state-of-the-art cryo CET work. However, it is also most important to establish the necessary cryo-lamella sample preparation platform to image macromolecular complexes in their cellular environment, as well as to optimize tomographic data collection by adding most advanced physical phase plate technology. In the end, this latter optimization will also help any macromolecular imaging work, in particular the planned studies on small protein complexes.