Advancing the Cryo-EM workflow: VitroJet Results at University of Helsinki

The CryoSol Community welcomes you to share knowledge about sample preparation for cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and learn from each other. We believe this is vital to advance cryo-EM research. Our Community is open to share publications, new insights and practical knowledge to innovate cryo-EM sample preparation.

We are very pleased to welcome Ausra Domanska and Behnam Lak as guest speakers in the Cryo Community webinar. Ausra is Adjunct Professor and cryo-EM research scientist at the Butcher group at the University of Helsinki. Behnam Lak is cryo-electron microscopy scientist in the same team. We are proud to mention here that the esteemed lab of Sarah Butcher at the University of Helsinki was one of the first to include the VitroJet sample preparation solution. They were looking for control and reproducibility to advance their cryo-EM workflow. In this webinar Ausra will tell you about the University of Helsinki and how it, as an Instruct-Eric facility, also provides access to their facility with the latest equipment, like the VitroJet automated cryo-EM sample preparation. Furthermore Ausra will tell you more about the research focus of the group and she will share results achieved by the Butcher lab with the VitroJet. Behnam will join the live Q&A to tell you how the new grid preparation workflow advances the total cryo-EM workflow.

All in all we are excited to have the cryo-EM experts Ausra and Behnam in our next webinar: Advancing the Cryo-EM workflow: VitroJet results at University of Helsinki.

The webinar will be hosted by René Henderikx, VitroJet Product Manager at CryoSol-World.

More about the webinar

Ausra will start with some information about the University of Helsinki. The university is the oldest (since 1640) and largest institutions of academic education in Finland. This now international scientific community has 40,000 students and 14,000 researchers and typically ranks internationally among the top 100 universities worldwide. They are also part of Helsinki Institute of Health Services and their cryo-EM service is a national service, serving the whole community in biological science in Finland. Basically anyone who wants to do cryo-EM. Since several years they are also part of Instruct-Eric. This way their cryo-EM service has customers from all the ‘Eric’ countries which is half of Europe.

Ausra will then talk about the research performed in their group and how the team supports scientists to tackle their challenges and enable new ground-breaking research. While the majority of the work involves academic research, they also work together with commercial customers. The Butcher group focusses on virus research. This mainly involves Picorna Viruses and Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus (TBEV) with the aim to find anti virals. The team also performed work on the Sars-Cov-2 Virus as part of a consortium with other groups. But the projects are not limited to viruses. There are a lot of research groups that purify all kind of proteins or protein complexes, human or other organisms, to study particles, inhibitors or ie receptors. A complex process from virus purification to cryo-EM or sometimes other techniques. Ausra will share results of high reproducibility of a variety of samples.

In addition Ausra will summarize how this new grid preparation workflow advances the total cryo-EM workflow. To name a view: clipping at room temperature, achieving a specific – often preferably thin – reproducible ice layer, bringing pre-clipped grids to the microscope. After that Behnam will be able to share personal experiences about the use of the automated machine to prepare samples, how to control sample preparation and image quality. Since the presentation will be followed by a live Q&A in which both Ausra and Behnam will participate. They will be happy to answer your questions about the presentation and workflow experiences. As always we encourage you to join in with many questions. Moreover at the end of the webinar, we invite you to share your ideas, needs or other speakers with us as organizers, to further improve cryo-EM sample preparation together. We are open for all, because we believe ´two achieve more´!

Just register by entering your email address above. You will receive an email instantly after registration, including a link to access the FREE webinar. Join us now to secure your free spot. It is OPEN for ALL. See you soon and enjoy the webinar on Wednesday June 21st!