Lecture Overview

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) offers the possibility of visualizing biological structures at resolution well beyond that of light microscopy. Whether you are interested in the ultrastructure of cells and organelles, or in the detailed molecular structure of biological macromolecules, different modalities of TEM can generally be applied to your system of interest.

The lecture reviews the physical principles underlying image formation by the interaction of electrons with matter, introduces you to basic and advanced instruments and to sample preparation techniques. Using a number of biological examples from work in the Nogales lab, the lecture then describes the capabilities of the TEM methodology. Special emphasis is placed on the image processing methods used to obtain three-dimensional information from TEM data.

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