Instrumentation

Our Titan Krios G3i is a 300 keV transmission electron microscope equipped with

1. Gatan K3 Summit Direct Electron Detector – reduces shot noise thereby increasing signal to noise
2. BioQuantum K3 Imaging Filter (Gatan Imaging Filter) – removes inelastically scattered electrons that cause blurring
3. Cryostage – preserves frozen biological samples in a vitreous state
4. Volta Phase Plate – enhances phase contrast, which is the primary source of contrast for vitreous samples under TEM
5. Autoloader system – enables loading of 12 samples at a time
6. SerialEM as the primary user interface for cryo-ET operations

Price

• • Independent use: $60/hour
  • Training or assisted use: $120/hour

Our Zeiss LSM 900 light microscope enables correlated light and electron microscopy (CLEM). It is an upright confocal microscope equipped with 

1. Four solid-state lasers at 405 nm, 488 nm, 561 nm, and 640 nm.
2. Airyscan 2 detector offers higher signal-to-noise than confocal imaging.
3. Linkam CMS196V³ cryostage preserves cryogenic samples in a vitreous state using an auto-fill system to continuously replenish LN2.
4. Parfocal long working distance air objectives (5X, 10X and 100X) – suitable for cryogenic samples
5. Zen Blue imaging software.

Price

• • Independent use: $25/hour
  • Training or assisted use: $65/hour

Our Zeiss Crossbeam 550 is a dual-beam instrument equipped with

1. A Gemini 2 scanning electron microscope (SEM) column - provides high signal/contrast and supports low-voltage imaging (<1
2. A Gallium focused ion beam (FIB) column for milling (energies 8-30 keV)
3. An InLens Energy Screened Backscattered (ESB) electron detector
4. An InLens Secondary Electron (InLensSE) detector
5. Everhart-Thornley Secondary Electron detector (ETSE a.k.a SE2)
6. A Gas Injection System (GIS) for organometallic Platinum deposition on samples – provides better conductivity and protection during milling/imaging.
7. A Quorum cryostage and cryo-transfer system – preserves frozen biological samples in a vitreous state, minimizes contamination during transfer and enables sample preparation involving Platinum sputter coating, freeze fracture and freeze etching.
8. Delmic Meteor in-chamber fluorescence imaging system – enables high-precision fluorescence-correlated milling.
9. A plasma cleaner to remove organic contamination from the imaging chamber surfaces.

Price

• • Independent use: $40/hour
  • Training or assisted use: $80/hour

    ---

     

It is an automatic plunge freezer predominantly used to vitrify cellular samples, although it can support other samples, such as purified proteins. It produces thin ice reproducibly using a temperature- and humidity-controlled environmental chamber. It supports

1. One-sided blotting
2. Sensor blotting
3. Adjustable temperature, relative humidity, and blotting conditions. 4-60 C temperature window.

Price

• • Independent use: $40/hour
  • Training: $80/hour

It is an automatic plunge freezer that is predominantly used to vitrify protein samples for single particle cryo-EM although it can support cellular samples. It produces thin ice in a reproducible fashion using a temperature and humidity controlled environmental chamber. It supports

1. Two-sided blotting
2. Adjustable temperature, relative humidity and blotting conditions.

Price

• • Independent use: $40/hour
  • Training: $80/hour

It helps with cell sample preparation for cryo-ET by controlling the positioning, adhesion, spreading and shape of cells on EM grids. These features facilitate high-throughput target selection for FIB-SEM-aided on-grid lamella generation for subsequent TEM imaging.

Price

• • Independent use: $20/hour
  • Training: $60/hour