Where to begin?

  1. Complete the three steps listed in the New User Access section first.
  2. Obtain an understanding of the overall process of Cryo-EM, single particle reconstruction, and macromolecular modeling next. There is a certain workflow.
  3. Then, reproducibly produce the highest quality samples possible, see sample preparation.
  4. Complete individual training on each of the instruments required.

What training is offered?

We document all the possibilities in our Training section. Though you can skip past this information and simply make a training request for a particular instrument immediately. If you are uncertain of what you need, then please just contact a staff member for a discussion. Only those we deem super-users can operate autonomously. All other users must be supervised, including external scientists that may have years of experience.

I don’t want to learn everything, can I send samples and just pay for the results?

Do you collaborate? Does collaboration reduce costs? Does collaboration help me?

How do I schedule instrument time? When can microscopes be used?

How do I send EM samples?

Can I image an infectious virus sample? or Can I image a toxin?

Human pathogens, biohazardous materials, and even samples containing nucleic acids all have strict guidelines, as explained in the section about biohazards.

How do I reference past usage of the EM Labs?

We provide two answers for this question in a section on acknowledgement.

Is there an email list?

Subscribe here. We normally only use this email list for training or scheduling issues.

Don’t see it above, is my question not frequency asked?

Contact us, we want to aid your research and might learn something too.