View All Electron Microscopy at Instruct
The Platform is equipped with 200 kV TEM, Glacios from Thermo Scientific, with extreme field emission gun (X-FEG) optics, equipped with a cryogenic sample manipulator robot for up to 12 grids and a last generation Falcon 4 direct electron detector with a capability of 300 movies/h. Its high level of automation and user guidance of experimental settings enable scientists to efficiently unravel protein structures in 3D, as well as understand their functional context in the biological cell.
Access to the following instrumentation is provided: the Glacios cryo-electron microscope which allows high-resolution SPA and cryoET automated data collection, two plunge freezing robots: Leica EM GP and Thermo Scientific Vitrobot Mark IV and an AKTA Pure protein purification system.
The Glacios cryo electron microscope
The Glacios cryo-electron microscope allows high-resolution SPA and cryoET automated data collection. An automatic loading mechanism allows mounting twelve grids at a time. This microscope is equipped with two digital cameras: Ceta-D and the direct electron detector Falcon 4.
Vitrobot Mark IV
The Vitrobot Mark IV System offers semi-automated vitrification to provide fast, easy, and reproducible sample preparation for cryo-EM.
Leica EM GP plunge freezer
The Leica EM GP plunge freezer freezes fluid or extremely thin samples spread on an electron microscopy grid into liquid ethane after removing excess fluid by automatic blotting.
User Guide:
The Platform is equipped with a 200 kV TEM, Glacios from Thermo Scientific, with extreme field emission gun (X-FEG) optics, equipped with a cryogenic sample manipulator robot for up to 12 grids and a last generation Falcon 4 direct electron detector with a capability of 300 movies/h. Its high level of automation and user guidance of experimental settings enable scientists to efficiently unravel protein structures in 3D, as well as understand their functional context in the biological cell.
There is a sample preparation room equipped with the following equipment: Vitrobot Mark IV vitrification system, GLoQube to grid treatment previous to vitrification, equipment to clip the grids and LN2 dewars to store the grids
The data sets generated are pre-processed on-the-fly with a powerful GPU workstation and can be stored up to 30 days at ALBA. Users can download their data either locally using an external disk or through the network.
