Opening New Frontiers with Cryo-Electron Microscopy

The 2017 GRC on Three-Dimensional Electron Microscopy (3DEM) continues a tradition of more than 30 years of 3DEM GRCs.

Technical breakthroughs have led to period of explosive growth in 3DEM, which has become a powerful and popular tool for studying the structures of biological objects. This has brought new challenges in sample preparation, automation, access to equipment, training, validation and dissemination.

The revolution is far from over. Ongoing developments in hardware, software, and methods are opening new frontiers – studying conformation landscapes, gaining insights into protein complex dynamics, determining the structures of smaller and more flexible proteins, and using tomography to observe the structures, conformations and spatial relationships of molecules inside cells.

At the 2017 GRC, the latest developments and the future trends in electron cryo-microscopy and cryo-electron tomography will be presented and discussed. The focus of the meeting will be technological and methodological development, as well as new and innovative ways in which 3DEM is being applied.