Multimodal scanning electron microscope for three-dimensional imaging of biological specimens
Year of award: 2021
Grantholders
Dr Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom
Dr Albert Cardona
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom
Dr Sjors Scheres
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom
Dr Tanmay Bharat
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom
Dr Marta Zlatic
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom
Dr David Barford
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom
Dr Radu Aricescu
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom
Dr Andrew Carter
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom
Dr Jan Löwe
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom
Dr Thi Hoang Duong Nguyen
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom
Project summary
Recent developments have enabled special microscopes, which include both an electron and an ion beam, to be optimized for biological investigations. These microscopes are revolutionizing biomedical research by allowing scientists to open windows into cells, tissues and organisms, and peek into their inner workings, generating a wealth of biomedically relevant data. We are requesting funds to acquire such a microscope in Cambridge, where it will be used by a large number of laboratories for 3D imaging of cells (e.g. dividing human cells) and tissues (e.g. Drosophila brain) at high-resolution under native conditions. This versatile instrument will provide a link between atomic and molecular structural data on one hand to 3D ultrastructure of tissues on the other, a complete transformational advance for our research. This will lead to new collaborations, ideas and new discoveries at the MRC-LMB and beyond.