Division of Science

About the Visualization Center

The center was founded in 1972 as the Laboratory of Structural Biology by Dr. Susan Lowey, Dr. Carolyn Cohen and Dr. Don Caspar (who coined the term ‘structural biology’), joined shortly by Dr. David DeRosier. Other faculty members over the years include Dr. Hugh Huxley, Dr. Niko Grigorieff, and Dr. Daniela Nicastro (a fuller version of the history of the facility is available).

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Available Equipment

Microscopes

TF20 Tecnai F20 TEM with a FEG and Compustage, equipped with a Gatan Oneview CMOS camera. It can be controlled via SerialEM software for tomographic and single particle data acquisition and have ambient and cryo sample holders

Morgagni TEM FEI Morgagni, operated at 80kV, with an AMT Nanosprint5 camera; used for screening grids of negative stain single particle and plastic sections

Sample Prep

Two plunge freezers: an FEI vitrobot and Gatan CP3
An Edwards Carbon Evaporator
Two glow discharge units
Rotary shadow
Freeze fracture
Leica AFS2 Automated Freeze Substitution machine
Leica UC6 ultramicrotome

Services and Techniques

We offer a wide variety of preparation and visualization techniques for biological samples ranging from standard methods to cryo-EM for high-resolution 2D or 3D imaging.
Our expertise includes:
Sample Preparation: Negative staining; Chemical fixation; Plunge freezing; Resin embedding; Ultramicrotomy and serial sectioning; Immuno-Electron Microscopy
TEM Imaging: 2D TEM Imaging; TEM Tomographic Imaging; Single particle cryo and negative stain-EM imaging