An advanced cryoEM instrument for the University of Cambridge

A new electron microscope at the University of Cambridge will let researchers see the atomic-scale structure of large biological molecules that have resisted all other imaging methods. The problem is that many of the protein complexes central to human health—such as those involved in viral infection, DNA repair, or cell signalling—are too large or flexible to form the crystals needed for X-ray crystallography, the traditional workhorse of structural biology. Without atomic-level images of these assemblies, scientists cannot understand exactly how they work or how to design drugs that target them. The new microscope, called a cryo-electron microscope (cryo-EM), uses a beam of electrons to image flash-frozen molecules, and recent advances in detectors and software now routinely achieve sub-nanometer resolution—enough to see individual atoms in large complexes. If this facility succeeds, it will transform how Cambridge’s large structural biology community studies fundamental molecular processes. The immediate impact is on fundamental science: researchers will finally be able to map the shapes of molecules that have been invisible. Historically, such structural insights have underpinned the development of antiviral drugs, antibody therapies, and vaccines. This microscope does not itself deliver treatments, but it provides the atomic blueprints that make those treatments possible.