iHuman Opens Bio-Electron Microscopy Facility

ON2019-08-30TAG: ShanghaiTech UniversityCATEGORY: iHuman Institute

The inauguration ceremony of the Bio-Electron Microscopy Facility of ShanghaiTech University was held in the atrium of Y-Building on July 30th. Founding Director of iHuman Institute, structural biologist Professor Raymond Stevens chaired the inauguration ceremony, which was attended by ShanghaiTech Vice President and Provost Professor Yin Jie, iHuman Institute Overseas Distinguished Adjunct Professor Wolfgang Baumeister, CAS Institute of Biophysics Professor Sun Fei, ShanghaiTech Vice Provost and HR Director  University Jiang Ge, and iHuman Institute Assistant Director Zhong Guisheng and other representatives, including National Academy of Sciences Professor Andrej Sali, National Center for Protein Science Shanghai Professor Cong Yao, and Tsingha Univesrity Professor Lei Jianlin. 

Professor Yin Jie expressed sincere gratitude to all the guest and attendees on behalf of the university and gave a brief introduction of ShanghaiTech University, encouraged scientific researchers to make full use of ShanghaiTech’s facilities and  nurture the next generation of innovative scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs, to carry out China’s national development strategy.

ShanghaiTech’s Bio-Electron Microscopy Facility is a significant scientific facility led by iHuman Institute, for structural biology, cell biology and related transformation research. The phase I of Bio-EM facility houses five electron microscopes, including two Talos 120C, one medium Arctica (200kv) and two Titan Krios (300kv), as well as the related sample preparation instruments, including CLEM CorrSight, High Pressure Freezing, cryo-ultramicrotomy, and GPU-based high performance computing cluster resources, offering support for the entire cryo-EM workflow.

Michael Shafer, president of Materials and Structural Analysis Division at Thermo Fisher, said Thermo Fisher can help customers accelerate research by integrating different analytical methods and technology in life science, and said Thermo Fisher is committed to making the world healther, cleaner and safer by working with customers together. He added he believes their instruments and technology can help ShanghaiTech to solve the scientific challenges faster, and said he hopes there will be more opportunities in the future for cooperation to better promote scientific output.

ShanghaiTech Vice Provost Jiang Ge announced the establishment of the International Bio-EM Facility Scientific Advisory Board, chaired by Professor Wolfgang Baumeister, an internationally renowned cryo-ET expert. The vice-chair is served by researcher Sun Fei from Institute of Biophysics, CAS. SIAIS Assistant Professor Wang Quan was appointed as scientific director of Bio-EM Facility.

Finally, Yin Jie, Raymond Stevens, Wolfgang Baumeister, Jiang Ge, Sun Fei and Zhong Guisheng jointly unveiled the notice board of Bio-Electron Microscopy Facility of ShanghaiTech University. 

On the afternoon of July 31st, research groups from iHuman Institute introduced their scientific research progress, and discussed the topic of cell modeling as panel discussions. During the one-and-a-half-day forum, participants listened to the latest research achievements and experiences of research institutes from different countries and regions, scholars from different disciplines and experts from industry in relevant research fields, and discussed the opportunities and challenges in imaging across scales. This forum accelerated the communication of imaging across scales and cell modeling, provided a platform for collaborations between experts in different fields, and further promoted the development and innovation of research in this field.