Difference: CemLetter4-5-05 ( vs. 1)

Exciting things are happening at NYSBC. Really. About 10 trucks of concrete were here last week and left us with footings for the new building and 2 out of 4 25-ft deep platforms for the electron microscopes (anchored to rock but swimming in a sea of mud). More trucks are scheduled for Thursday to complete the job (also more mud). The down side of this is that you will no longer be able to park on site.

We are also making progress in the acquisition of microscopes to put in this new building (phase III). You will recall that we have a single 200kV FEG microscope currently installed in temporary space in the "phase I" building. We have plans to purchase an additional 200kV and a 300kV instrument. In Feb, we issued a "Request for Proposals" from JEOL and FEI and both John Berriman and I have made visits to several sites to view existing 200kV and 300kV instruments from both manufacturers (NIH for FEI 300kV, Berkeley for JEOL 300kV, Brookhaven and possibly Lehigh for JEOL 200kV). We have also met with sales teams from FEI, JEOL and Gatan, the latter of which is an OEM for both CCD cameras and specimen holders. Based on these visits, we have come to a good understanding of the technical limits of the respective instruments and are now on the verge of soliciting "Best and Final Offers" from the two companies for comparable configurations of 200kV and 300kV instruments. In addition, we have requested loan of a used 120kV instrument to be used immediately for screening and, depending on cost, will consider permanent acquisition of this screening instrument for installation in phase III.

We are still in need of outreach efforts. One idea that keeps surfacing is to run workshops, and I will append to this message recent announcements for workshops offered at EMBL and at Scripps (you might like to forward these to interested parties). However, for a variety of reasons, we would like to explore the alternative strategy of tapping into graduate education at our member institutions. One idea is to offer a graduate course in cryoelectron microscopy that would be offered for credit to students from all our member institutions. Another idea is to contact directors of existing methods courses and offer to host their students for practical demonstrations of cryoEM at NYSBC. I would very much appreciate your help in exploring these ideas and identifying relevant courses and graduate deans at your respective institutions.

I would like to hold a meeting of the cryoem operations committee (that's you) to discuss these issues and you will therefore be hearing soon from us regarding your availability over the next couple of weeks. Thus, I look forward to seeing you then and hearing your opinions about how best to proceed.

Until then, David

Scripps course in CryoEM: http://nramm.scripps.edu/seminars/2005/cryoem/

EMBL course in CryoEM: http://www.ismb.lon.ac.uk/embocourse.html

Univ. of Vermont course in CryoEM of Single Particles: http://physioweb.med.uvm.edu/Cryo_Practical/index.htm

Single Particle CryoEM course in Brasil: http://www.cbem.ic.ac.uk/santa_rita/

Also note recent course in Single Particle Analysis at Baylor: http://ncmi.bcm.tmc.edu/ncmi/events/workshops/workshops_7/

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-- DavidStokes - 05 May 2005