200kV Cryo Transmission Electron Microscope

根据目前的建议，海德堡校区将大力加强两条电子显微镜研究线：通过两个低温TEM（一个低端和一个中/高端）建立严格的样品工作流程，可以在现有的高端低温TEM进行最终分辨率成像之前筛选大量样品进行单颗粒分析（SPA）。对于计划中的大分子生物化学教授来说，SPA的显微镜时间的这种扩展是绝对必要的——这将进一步增加所有生物医学研究所日益增长的需求。同时，在配套显微镜上的筛选工作流程将减少我们现有的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。随着雇用额外的初级教师，必须增加这些工作的仪器时间。我们最近升级了我们的专用高端低温TEM与后能量过滤器直接电子探测器，现在将允许最先进的低温CET工作。然而，最重要的是建立必要的低温片层样品制备平台，以便在细胞环境中对大分子复合物进行成像，并通过添加最先进的物理相板技术来优化层析数据收集。最后，后一种优化也将有助于任何大分子成像工作，特别是对小蛋白质复合物的计划研究。

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.