Originally from Mexico, Victor Armijo joined the instrumentation team at EMBL Grenoble in 2018. This team has been supporting structural biology research for several decades with technological developments and innovations, particularly by automating processes that are part of the scientific services researchers use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this interview, Armijo, who is helping develop an automated sample preparation instrument for cryo-electron microscopy, provides insights about his work in the team, shares life and career advice, and talks about how he has combined two hobbies by starting a YouTube channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m a mechatronics engineer on the instrumentation team led by Gergely Papp at EMBL Grenoble. The term \u2018mechatronics\u2019 means that you are putting different engineering aspects together: mechanics, electronics, robotics, and informatics, all in a single package. Therefore, my work on the instrumentation team is to assemble equipment we develop, considering all these aspects. It\u2019s a fascinating job because we are developing machines and technologies that don\u2019t yet exist to solve problems and improve scientific research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The collaboration! As engineers, we know perfectly how machines work and what we can do with them. However, we need scientists to guide us in their needs, so we work closely with them. These exchanges are always very interesting. I\u2019ve learned a lot about proteins, their functions, why they are so important, etc. It\u2019s quite funny, considering that I failed biology three times in high school!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of my most important projects currently is EasyGrid, an automated sample preparation machine for different microscopy technologies, such as cryo-electron microscopy, cryo-electron tomography, and X-ray nanoimaging. These kinds of technologies are relatively new for us as the instrumentation team at EMBL Grenoble has historically been very strong in automating processes for macromolecular crystallography and small angle X-ray scattering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My work on this project has been to build the machine and test different methods for sample preparation. It\u2019s a very delicate process as the researcher needs a very thin film of vitrified sample, between 50 to 150 nm thick, placed on a small copper or gold grid. Putting together a machine capable of doing this in an automated fashion was not trivial at all. My work involved a lot of research, technological development, and collaboration with research groups at EMBL Grenoble, Heidelberg, and Hamburg to test our prototypes, as well as at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, the Institut de Biologie Structurale, and the Centre d\u2019Etudes Atomiques – CEA in Grenoble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n