FEI and the National Center for Protein Sciences Beijing Launch Training & Research Facility for Cryo-Electron Microscopy 

FEI and the Tsinghua University Branch of National Center for Protein Sciences Beijing announce a collaboration to establish a joint new training and research program for cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) in structural biology. With this joint program, the centre will feature the first complete cryo-EM workflow in Asia for molecular and cellular structural biologists.

“The ability to integrate three-dimensional (3D) molecular-scale information from cryo-EM with XRD results as well as NMR data enables researchers to visualise and understand the relationship between structure and function of molecular complexes that may hold the key for central biomedical questions,” stated Peter Fruhstorfer, FEI’s Vice President and General Manager of Life Sciences. “Thus, the boundary conditions are created to gain ground-breaking new insights into the way living systems function, and may lead to promising pathways for the development of effective new medicines and other personalised molecular therapies.”

“We are very enthusiastic about adopting FEI’s workflow solutions into our core facilities,” said Professor Hongwei Wang, Tsinghua University. “This is a unique opportunity to establish a key collaborative reference site for China and the entire South-East Asia region. The adopted workflow solution opens the door to understanding the structure and function of whole classes of proteins and protein complexes that are simply beyond the capabilities of NMR and XRD alone. An integrative approach that incorporates cryo-EM enables us to begin to look for answers to some of the most important biological questions of our time.”

Professor Wang added: “This collaborative effort with FEI to establish a training program at Tsinghua University is a key step in developing the talented and knowledgeable researcher community we need to pursue and maintain leadership in this field.”