Maintaining the momentum in cryoEM for biological discovery.

Faraday Discuss

School of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences & Astbury Centre for Structural and Molecular Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.

Published: November 2022

Cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) has been transformed over the last decade, with continual new hardware and software tools coming online, pushing the boundaries of what is possible and the nature and complexity of projects that can be undertaken. Here we discuss some recent trends and new tools which are creating opportunities to make more effective use of the resources available within facilities (both staff and equipment). We present approaches for the stratification of projects based on risk and known information about the projects, and the impacts this might have on the allocation of microscope time. We show that allocating different resources (microscope time) based on this information can lead to a significant increase in 'successful' use of the microscope, and reduce lead time by enabling projects to 'fail faster'. This model results in more efficient and sustainable cryoEM facility operation.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/d2fd00129bDOI Listing

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