Biological Cryo-Imaging Group Update 2023-2024

Charlotte Meller, Mia Brunning, Misha Atkinson, Taylah Andrews-Clark, Martin Walsh, Petra Lukacik, Claire Strain-Damerell, Anu Chandran

The Biological Cryo-imaging Group brings together dedicated facilities for cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), X-ray and super resolution light microscopies at Diamond Light Source. The electron Bioimaging Centre (eBIC) is the national centre for cryo-EM in the UK and provides a range of capabilities and supporting facilities for single particle cryo-EM, cryo-Electron Tomography (cryo-ET) and Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy (CLEM). Beamline B24 provides a full field cryo-transmission X-ray microscope dedicated to biological X-ray imaging and has also established cryo super-resolution fluorescence microscopy, which is a joint venture between Diamond and the University of Oxford. It provides a unique platform for correlative light and X-ray microscopy, and cryo-EM. The user community for the Biological Cryo-Imaging group continues to grow and training continues to be a major focus.

B24 team Archana Jadhav, Kamal Nahas, Chidinma Okolo, Maria Harkiolaki

At B24 a specialised workshop on imaging cells using the correlative cryo-soft X-ray tomography capabilities of the beamline was held last September. The workshop was a mixture of lectures and hands-on practical sessions to take potential users through all stages of the imaging workflows in place at B24. The course was targeted at graduate students and early-career researchers and was supported by funding from Instruct-ERIC which is a pan-European distributed research infrastructure making high-end technologies and methods in structural biology available to users. Instruct-ERIC is comprised of 17 member countries and organisations including the UK. The UK Instruct-ERIC centre brings together structural biology capabilities from three locations across the UK, namely the Harwell campus, the University of Oxford and the University of Leeds. Diamond is a major part of the UK centre and currently offers access to Instruct-ERIC members to Diamond’s MX suite of beamlines, Diamond’s BioSAXS beamline B21, eBIC and the Membrane Protein Laboratory. The aim is to extend this offering to provide a new access route to B24 through the UK Instruct-ERIC centre later this year. The latter will ensure continuity of access to our European user base at B24 as the Horizon 2020 funded iNEXT-Discovery project which finishes at the end of July 2024. iNEXT-Discovery provided access to structural biology infrastructure across Europe and specifically sought to enhance and further develop capabilities and foster the growth of new users through a coordinated programme of training and networking events.

CryoCLEM at eBIC with Parijat Majumder

At eBIC it has been a busy year for the eBIC training programme which has been led and coordinated by eBIC scientist Lorna Malone. Specialist training courses with hands on practicals were carried out for cryoEM sample preparation and two further workshops covering all aspects of cryoEM, one directed at PhD students and one for researchers new to the field with different levels of experience. Sample preparation was the first area we focused on for training of our users back in 2016 and this topic continues to be in high demand to meet the needs of the community. This year’s course formed part of the iNEXT-Discovery training programme that we are partnered in. Continuing with iNEXT-Discovery, eBIC participated in a multi-country/centre iNEXT-Discovery workshop in cryo-FIB, lamella preparation and cryo-ET with students distributed across five geographically distinct sites (eBIC, IGBMC/ CBI Strasbourg, EMBL Heidelberg and CEITEC, Brno). Students were taught with hands-on practicals at each site and joined together for virtual lectures covering background and theory.

The eBIC team 2024

Other joint training courses have been executed with CCP-EM through the Icknield Model building workshop and our wellcome funded cryoEM training program with University of Leeds, University of Glasgow, University of Leicester and Birkbeck, University of London that offered courses in single particle cryoEM and Cryo-ET. Finally we continue to provide highly focused and practical training for eBIC users through our BAG training sessions which take place three to four times a year.

The biggest event of the year for us and our users to meet and discuss everything from accessing our instruments to what’s new, what’s working well, what can be better and dissemination of the science being performed is the annual BCI user meeting which is jointly organised with the CCP-EM spring symposium. This year was a special event as it marked the 10th anniversary of the CCP-EM symposium as well as ten years of eBIC.

Primo micropatterning device with Karen Davies

The jointly organised event with CCP-EM has become hugely successful and the number of registered users this year was 1,325! The meeting was a hybrid event with 365 attendees in person and 960 virtual attendees. The BCI user meeting takes up day one of the three-day joint meeting and consists of a series of parallel workshops in the morning and an afternoon session of talks from our scientists, users and plenary lectures, ending with a discussion and feedback session on the user programme offered at eBIC and B24. The full programme can be reviewed online. This year’s satellite workshop topics were Visualising structures in cells: latest in correlative microscopy organised by James Gilchrist and Parijat Majumder from eBIC and Itziar Serna Martin from Thermo Fisher Scientific; Soft X-ray tomography applicability and accessibility organised by Archana Jadhav from B24 and Automated live processing for SPA and cryoET at eBIC organised by Dan Hatton and Stephen Riggs (eBIC data analysis team). A record attendance of 265 in person and 464 unique remote users engaged in the BCI meeting this year which meant a very lively and engaging day of talks and discussion. The day was wrapped up with a reception, live music and ceilidh dancing. Next year's user meeting will again take place at the East Midlands conference centre in Nottingham and we look forward to meeting you all there.

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