The Cryo-Electron Microscopy (Cryo-EM) Unit, as part of the National Facility for Structural Biology, seeks to recruit two Senior and\or Junior Electron Microscopy (EM) Specialists that will actively participate in maintaining the national facility, take part in scientific collaborations, and support internal and external users.
The Cryo-EM Unit workflows span from sample preparation (i.e. negative staining, plunge freezing, high-pressure freezing, freeze substitution, chemical fixation, resin embedding, carbon coating and metal sputtering, cryo-ultramicrotomy, and micropatterning) to imaging techniques (i.e. TEM\STEM imaging at room and cryogenic temperatures on side-entry holder systems, widefield and confocal cryo-CLEM imaging, SEM imaging and FIB-milling, TEM\EF-TEM imaging at cryogenic temperatures on autoloader-equipped systems). Currently, the Cryo-EM Unit owns: a 300kV Thermo Scientific Titan Krios G4i TEM with Falcon 4i, Selectris X energy filter, and Volta phase-plate; a 200kV Thermo Scientific Glacios TEM with Falcon 4i, Selectris X energy filter, Volta phase-plate, and micro-ED package; a 300kV Thermo Scientific Spectra S/TEM with CETA 2 with speed enhancement, HAADF, BF and DF detectors; a 120kV Thermo Scientific Talos L120C TEM with Gatan Elsa cryo-holder; a Thermo Scientific Aquilos 2 DualBeam cryo-FIB system with EasyLift system, AutoSlice-and-View and AutoTEM modules; a Leica Thunder widefield and a Leica Stellaris confocal microscopes with white light laser equipped with cryo-stage for CLEM applications; all ancillary sample preparation equipment including plunge freezing devices, glow discharger units, plasma cleaners, carbon and metal sputter coater, high-pressure freezer, automated freeze substitution device, micropatterning device and ultramicrotome for both resin-embedded and vitrified samples. Our microscopes operate with SerialEM, Thermo Scientific EPU, Tomography, EPU-D, Velox and MAPS. Computing resources for EM-related analyses software packages are also available via VMs and HPC. Expansion of the Cryo-EM Unit with more high-end microscopes and equipment is planned from 2024.
While building a solid expertise in all the above-mentioned techniques, the activity of each Senior\Junior EM Specialist will particularly focus on one of the following applications:
Single-particle Area, which main activities include sample preparation by negative staining and plunge freezing, imaging by TEM and cryo-TEM, and single-particle analysis;
Cryo-Electron tomography Area, which main activities include sample preparation by FIB-milling, micropatterning, cryo-CLEM, cryo-electron tomography, and sub-tomogram averaging;
Volume EM Area, which main activities include chemical fixation, high-pressure freezing, freeze substitution, resin embedding, CLEM, and electron tomography by TEM\STEM imaging.
Number of positions offered: 2
Deadline: 1st September 2023
More Info and How to Apply
Contract offered: Initial fixed-term 3 years renewable to permanent position upon successful performance review.