Difference: CemAnnouncements (4 vs. 5)

NEW DUAL BEAM FIB/SEM MICROSCOPE AVAILABLE FOR YOUR USE

The New York Structural Biology Center (NYSBC), to which your institution belongs, has recently acquired a new dual beam FIB/SEM microscope. This microscope is available to you, with NYSBC staff assistance, at no cost. Originally, this microscope was developed by the semi-conductor industry but is now being used with dramatic effect by the biological community. The FIB/SEM can reconstruct an entire cell at high resolution and make a movie -- a continuous series of slices as you move through the cell. This could have great benefits for cell biologists, virologists and neuroscientists.

One application of the FIB/SEM is to create large-scale serial section reconstructions from resin-embedded tissues (e.g., 5x10x10 um). The sections are created in the microscope with a gallium ion beam and each section is generally ~10nm thick. The resolution is typically 5-10 nm – enough, for example, to distinguish the inner and outer membranes of mitochondria and to identify synaptic vesicles and the post-synaptic density. The process is automated and data collection takes a few days. Another application enables thinning frozen, non-stained samples for later use by traditional cryoelectron microscopy. NYSBC has a light microscope required for this process. A sample movie can be viewed at http://cryoem.nysbc.org/movie.mpg

Oblique view of a resin-embedded section of rat neural tissue during automated collection.	Expanded view from a section. The pixel size is 6 nm. More than one region from a section can be collected at high resolution.

Expert staff at NYSBC is available to assist with projects. To access the NYSBC electron microscopy facility, contact the CEM Representative at your institution (listed here) and copy cem@nysbc.org. It is also best to embed the samples at your home institution’s EM facility. NYSBC staff will advise as needed. We are pleased to inform the scientific community about this new, very exciting microscope and to help with your projects.

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