Cryo-electron Microscopy Breakthroughs and Applications in 3D Biological Imaging

Abstract

[evdate 2017-09-01] IAS symposium .Part of workshop 'Mathematics for Cryo-electron Microscopy'. Title from slide title.

Abstract: With breakthroughs in electron detector technology, cryo-electron microscopy (EM) is going through a revolutionary transformation, overtaking X-ray crystallography as a major tool for high-resolution 3D biological imaging, especially for molecular machines that are oscillating among multiple compositional and conformational states. In this lecture, the speaker uses a few biological applications to illustrate the development of cryo-EM over the years. Particularly, he focuses on the current limitations in the workflow of sample preparation and data processing, and discuss the needs for improving the method from sample-freezing techniques to imaging classification algorithms.

Prof Ning Gao is Professor of Life Sciences at Peking University. He moved across the street at the beginning of 2017 from Tsinghua University where he was assistant, associate and full Professor from 2008 to 2017. He received his training in cryo-EM with Prof Joachim Frank first as a graduate student in the Wadsworth Center, Albany and then as a postdoctoral associate at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. During his training, he contributed to the early development of cryo-EM technology as an imaging tool for biological samples. As an independent investigator, he remains committed to the development of cryo-EM methodologies and applications. As a structural biologist, he has a deep interest in the functions and mechanisms of macromolecular machines, in particular, the study of ribosome biogenesis and translational regulation. More recently, he has developed an interest in the study of eukaryotic DNA replication.

Duration: 72 min.