Electron Microscopy Facility

Since 2016, the Electron Microscopy (EM) facility provides advanced expertise in electron cryomicroscopy, from sample preparation to image analysis, with a focus on single particle analysis.

The equipment is maintained and managed by the facility staff, who also provide training and assistance for anyone wishing to use any of the equipment listed below.
Cryo-EM facilities are available for internal users and on a collaborative basis. Please get in touch with Sarah Schneider to discuss possible access.

Equipment

Vitrobot Mark IV and PELCO easiGlow glow discharger

Edwards carbon evaporator

lab equipment

Tecnai G2 Spirit BT (T12)

120 kV accelerating voltage, LaB6 source. 16M CETA camera, used mainly for negative staining samples, but also capable of cryo-EM using side entry cryo-holders.

lab equipment

Glacios

200 kV accelerating voltage, field emission gun (X-FEG) source. This microscope is equipped with an autoloader, Falcon 3EC direct detector and is connected to WARP on-the-fly data processing. This microscope is used for cryo-EM sample optimisation and data collection.

Data storage

Recently, EMBL Grenoble made a special storage system investment to accommodate the ever expanding EM data for the 5 next years. The new system will be run using NetApp technology. This investment will be complemented in 2021 with a high performance storage system that will reduce EM calculation processing time.

High-performance computing cluster

The computing cluster shared with the Institut de Biologie Structurale (IBS) allows efficient data processing using state-of-the-art data processing software such as Relion or CryoSPARC. Eight cluster nodes comprising a total of 40 GPUs allow efficient data processing by multiple users. CPU cluster with 600 CPU provides additional resources for other software packages. High-performance computing at EMBL is supported by SBGrid.

Recent achievements

EM Team

Collaboration

EMBL Grenoble also participates, together with the other Partnership for Structural Biology (PSB) institutes, in running the CM01 Titan Krios cryo-electron microscope at the ESRF for external users.

For more information regarding access, you can visit the ESRF page or contact EMBL staff scientist Michael Hons.

Services at EMBL Grenoble

EMBL Grenoble provides a number of research services to in-house and external users as well as having access to the services provided by other units of EMBL.