The Cryo-EM Center at HWI provides:

• Expert staff – Dr. Qiu-Xing Jiang directs the center with his team with almost 30 years of combined experience.
• State of the art instrumentation – A Thermo Fisher Glacios 200 kV microscope with a Volta phase plate, a Falcon 4 Detector for high-throughput grid screening and high-resolution data collection, and a Ceta-D camera for micro-crystal electron diffraction. Thermo Fisher Vitrobot for grid preparation.
• State-of-the-art laboratories – A well-equipped space for biochemical preparation and biophysical characterization of biological samples; a walk-in humidity-controlled environment dedicated for grid preparation.
• Purpose-built facilities – A microscope facility designed to achieve the best performance. Glycol-cooled temperature control, acoustic and electromagnetic isolation, and laminar air flow are implemented into the construction of these spaces. High-capacity data storage and high-performance computational resources with highly tightened data security and user confidentiality are implemented for remote access during and after data collection.
• Timely access -Experimental runs in the Center are scheduled on a weekly basis and can be prearranged ahead of time to suit the special needs of users’ samples when necessary. Users may inspect their grids and data on the fly during data collection and will have remote access to their data for two months after data collection.

Dr. Qiu-Xing Jiang. 

Cryo-EM Center Director. Dr. Jiang has 20-years of experience in using cryo-EM for his scientific programs starting with his graduate work at Yale University. His laboratory is specialized in membrane biophysics and molecular physiology and has expertise in collecting and analyzing cryoEM data from different types of cryo-EM samples including low and high-symmetry macromolecular complexes, helical filaments, and 2D crystals. He has applied cryo-EM for structural studies at different resolution regimes for different scientific problems. His research on technical innovation includes the development of spherically constrained reconstruction, chemically functionalized nanometer-thick carbon films, bead-supported unilamellar membranes, and carbon-supported planar membranes, all of which are applicable for cryo-EM studies of biological samples. 

Dr. Gaya Yadav

Cryo-EM Center Manager. 

Dr. Yadav has 8 years of experience in using cryo-EM for different scientific projects and has practical experience in applying different techniques and operating different types of cryo-electron microscopes. He is a trained biochemist and structural biologist. His graduate work was on X-ray crystallographic studies of enzymes and his postdoctoral work on the structural and functional studies of macromolecular complexes for both fundamental scientific problems and structure-based drug design. He is a manager of daily operations at the Cryo-EM Center.