Electron Microscopy

Abstract

We help our users to answer their scientific questions utilizing a wide range of EM methods ranging from every-day classical methods, such as negative staining or classical chemical fixation, to cutting edge techniques, such as cryo-electron microscopy and tomography. Here are two examples of what we do: Do birds have a biological compass? Birds use the earth’s magnetic field to navigate. Using EM and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) we helped researchers from the IMP (Vienna BioCenter) to show that frequently found electron dense structures in tissue sample are more likely heavy metal contaminations from the used tools than the long sought-after biological compass (Edelman et al., 2015 PNAS). How do cells fuse vesicles in intracellular transport? Intracellular transport is an essential function for the survival of cells, but many key processes are not well understood. Working together with scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden (Germany), we utilized rotary shadowing to visualize an endosomal tether which plays an important role in recognizing and fusing vesicles (Murray et al., 2016 Nature).