{"id":120927,"date":"2024-04-19T13:43:39","date_gmt":"2024-04-19T17:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/?p=120927"},"modified":"2024-04-19T13:46:37","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T17:46:37","slug":"celebrating-the-first-light-of-the-new-cryoem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/2024\/04\/19\/celebrating-the-first-light-of-the-new-cryoem\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating the \u2018First Light\u2019 of the New CryoEM"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Vanna
Edward Avedisian Professor and Chair of Pharmacology, Physiology & Biophysics Vanna Zachariou, PhD, adjusts the settings of the cryoEm in the control room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The \u2018First Light\u2019 of Boston University\u2019s Glacios-2 cryogenic electron microscope (cryo-EM) is an exciting step in the setup of the new Cryo-EM Core Facility.<\/p>\n

Located on the Medical Campus, there are 25 research groups across the university ready to use the new core, including teams from the dental and medical schools along with the College of Art & Sciences and College of Engineering.<\/p>\n

\"Jamie
Jamie McKnight, PhD, associate provost and dean of graduate medical sciences and associate professor of pharmacology, physiology & biophysics, with the cryoEM<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With this new instrumentation, investigators will be able to advance scientific discoveries in health and disease by determining structures of macromolecules at near-atomic resolution. Samples are frozen so quickly that the water freezes as a glass, providing samples that are kept in a near-native state.<\/p>\n

Thousands of images will be collected daily and analyzed using computers in the facility and at the Boston University Shared Computing Cluster. Planned experiments include studies on the heart, muscle, Alzheimer\u2019s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, G protein coupled receptor complexes, bacterial and viral infections, enzyme function, nanoparticles and protein biosynthesis and transport.<\/p>\n

This is BU\u2019s first cryo-EM core facility, updating older cryo-EMs located in the department of pharmacology, physiology & biophysics.<\/p>\n

\"Dean
Dean Antman\u00a0inside the control room of the cryoEM,\u00a0ready to open the column valves that will send electrons down the column for\u00a0\u201cfirst light.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cryo-EM was funded, in part, by a National Institutes of Health Shared Instrumentation Grant awarded to Professor of Pharmacology, Physiology & Biophysics Esther Bullitt, PhD. The expansion of EM facilities and recruitment of structural biology faculty has been one of the high-priority goals for Vanna Zachariou, PhD, Edward Avedisian Professor and chair of the department.<\/p>\n

A \u2018First Light\u2019 gathering was held Friday to celebrate the inaugural electron beam from the instrument, which was configured by Dean Antman.\u00a0Alignment and testing of the Glacios-2 are continuing, and it is expected the facility will be ready for use in the near future. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Members
Members of the Pharmacology, Physiology & Biophysics team gather together with Dean Antman during the \u201cFirst Light\u201d ceremony marking the inaugural electron beam from the new cryoEM<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alignment and testing of the Glacios-2 are continuing, and it is expected the facility will be ready for use in the near future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[91,90],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120927"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120927"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120942,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120927\/revisions\/120942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}