Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
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Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#2What would be the "realistic" potential use cases?
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#3What would be the "realistic" potential use cases?
confirming certain molecular structures? We can nail down exact composition down to number of atoms in complex molecules, but the actual geometry is a (VERY well educated) "guesswork". edit1: well, its not actual guessing, there are other techniques that can also give hints for certain structural patterns (rings, chains, etc.) but still, its a very complex puzzle to piece the exact structure together.
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#4I'm curious could you use AFM/STM to image molecules? I'm curious how that would compare with this approach.
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#5What would be the "realistic" potential use cases?
It's much easier to study and understand something you can actually see.
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#6What would be the "realistic" potential use cases?
From the article: “That is a gold mine for structure-based drug design,” says Aricescu, because it shows how a drug could displace the water molecules, potentially resulting in medications with fewer side effects.
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#7I thought an individual atom has been imaged before, at least roughly. Anyway, this is fantastic science. I'm excited to see how imaging atoms affects our understanding of quantum mechanics and atomic structure in general.
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#8I thought an individual atom has been imaged before, at least roughly. Anyway, this is fantastic science. I'm excited to see how imaging atoms affects our understanding of quantum mechanics and atomic structure in general.
> has been imaged before
Last year, Aricescu’s team used cryo-EM to map the protein to 2.5 ångströms. But with the new kit, the researchers attained a 1.7-ångström resolution, with even better resolution in some key parts of the protein. “It was like peeling off a blur over your eyes,” Aricescu says. “At this resolution, every half ångström opens up a whole universe.”
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#9So, 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.
Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
#10The 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.