Makes me think of that one Simpsons scene where Mr Burns finds atoms in his factory
Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
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Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#32The real breakthrough here is that with this technique you don't have to crystallize the proteins anymore, which is the biggest bottleneck in X-Ray Crystallography. Relevant; they used Cyro-EM to elucidate the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein [1], which is a big step towards the development of a vaccine. This is a resolution of 3.5 ångström, but still a very nice feat. [1]: https://science.sciencemag.org/con…
Very interesting!
They link the full labelled 3D model in the article's footer: https://www.rcsb.org/structure/6vsb - very cool.
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#33Where can I find the pictures?
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#34So, pardon my ignorance, but can we finally say that atoms are particles with concrete dimensions? Last time I checked the whole field seemed measuring everything into probabilistic and statistical terms.
For better or worse, Cryo-EM doesn't settle this. The results are inherently statistical no matter what, and probably can't distinguish between one microscopic model of the atom and another. I haven't seen the equations, but both the amount of data, and the amount of processing, are profound. I work in a peripherally related area, and just one anecdotal note is that the people doing this work think nothing of a single measurement filling up a terabyte hard drive with data.
There are naturally a lot of views about this topic, but one that resonated with me (perhaps recently discussed in HN) is that science can't necessarily make things intuitive, because it has this nasty habit of telling us when our intuition is wrong.
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#35So, pardon my ignorance, but can we finally say that atoms are particles with concrete dimensions? Last time I checked the whole field seemed measuring everything into probabilistic and statistical terms.
What you see with cryo-EM are essentially clouds of electron density. So unfortunately, it doesn't address this.
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#36Where can I find the pictures?
There aren't any. The way cryo-EM works is it images hundreds of thousands of copies of the molecule and uses those to construct a 3D model, in this case, with atomic resolution. However, a single micrograph doesn't necessarily contain atomic resolution.
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not an expert, but as far as I understand it, both, i.e. atoms are ("physical") manifestations of (probabilistic) quantum fluctuations. If I'm wrong, it would be great if someone could ELI5.
I hope somebody weighs in because ever since I read that matter is just quantum field excitations I've lost all intuition about what reality is. Everything seems to be nothing.
This scene from The Sopranos addresses this idea beautifully: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFDq985HvPk
"Everything is everything."
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#38The real breakthrough here is that with this technique you don't have to crystallize the proteins anymore, which is the biggest bottleneck in X-Ray Crystallography. Relevant; they used Cyro-EM to elucidate the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein [1], which is a big step towards the development of a vaccine. This is a resolution of 3.5 ångström, but still a very nice feat. [1]: https://science.sciencemag.org/con…
3.5Å cryo-EM structures have existed for some time. The important thing coming down under 2Å or so, is that it drastically improves the quality of the molecular dynamics simulations you build of these structures.
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#39I'm a structural biologist that uses CryoEM to study archeal viruses. I'd be happy to answer any questions about CryoEM.
I did want to point out though that this title is misleading. The researchers didn't get an image of an atom. Instead, they reconstructed hundreds of thousands of images of the protein to determine where the atoms are almost exactly. So there's no actual image that shows an atom, as cool as that would be.
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#40I'm a structural biologist that uses CryoEM to study archeal viruses. I'd be happy to answer any questions about CryoEM. I did want to point out though that this title is misleading. The researchers didn't get an image of an atom. Instead, they reconstructed hundreds of thousands of images of the protein to determine where the atoms are almost exactly. So there's no actual image that shows an atom, as cool as that wo…
What are the limitations of this technique in determining spatial structure of the proteins? Do they get denaturated when cooled?