The microscope is powerful enough to peer into the deepest structures of life itself, accelerating the development of new drugs to treat infectious diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and even cancer..
The ÒÁÈËÖ±²¥ has now acquired one of five cryo-electron microscopes in Canada — and the only one in Alberta — capable of revealing the smallest details of cells, proteins and viruses at atomic scale.
“And if we can do that, we can design medical countermeasures like antiviral and cancer drugs to improve the health of Canadians and society in general,” says, professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology and director of Striving for Pandemic Preparedness – The Alberta Research Consortium (SPP-ARC ).
“It will give us a very deep understanding of biological processes involving proteins, RNA and DNA, showing us what they look like and how they interact with each other,” says Götte.
The $8-million high-resolution microscope is the core of the Alberta Cryo-EM Facility, which includes instrumentation for sample preparation and data processing, as well as high-level training, all aimed at preparing for and developing drugs against infectious diseases.
Cryo-electron microscopy, developed by , and , was recognized with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2017. From tiny samples frozen to -180 C, the microscope can produce detailed images of complex molecular structures measured in angstroms, or one ten-billionth of a metre. The captured data are processed within hours, compared with the months or years needed for previous technologies.
The $20-million facility — funded by the Government of Alberta through SPP-ARC — will have applications across a number of scientific disciplines, says Götte, and will likely be in high demand by researchers across the country and even internationally.