# Cryo-TEM and Micro Electron Diffraction Instrument

> **NIH NIH S10** · UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN · 2020 · $1,400,000

## Abstract

Project Summary
Recent advances in hardware instrumentation (microscopes, detectors), and computational
software (image processing algorithms) have transformed biology by allowing for near atomic
resolution analysis of large, macromolecular complexes using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-
EM). NIH-funded research programs across the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
(UIUC) with studies that focus on antimicrobials, antifungals, cancer, immune diseases,
HIV/AIDs, among other diseases would benefit enormously from access to cryo-EM. While the
campus have excellent facilities for TEM/SEM studies of materials and nanostructures, the
instrumentation for cryo-EM studies of biological macromolecules is sorely lacking.
Instrumentation to enable local capabilities for cryo-EM and micro-electron diffraction (microED)
are necessary to advances these research programs. We request funding to partially offset the
costs for a Glacios 200 kV cryo transmission electron microscope with an active pixel sensor
(for microED) and direct electron detector (for cryo-EM). The Glacios will significantly impact
existing NIH-funded projects by enabling studies of large multi-protein complexes, and small
natural products and metabolites. The necessary intellectual expertise and operational
infrastructure is already in place on the UIUC campus, providing strong justification for the
requested instrumentation. The Glacios will complement the UIUC membership as part of the
PI4L Consortium, which provides access to the most advanced cryo-EM instrumentation to
advance structures that are first solved on the UIUC campus to the highest possible resolution.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9940118
- **Project number:** 1S10OD028700-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
- **Principal Investigator:** Satish K Nair
- **Activity code:** S10 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $1,400,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-08-15 → 2021-08-14

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9940118

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9940118, Cryo-TEM and Micro Electron Diffraction Instrument (1S10OD028700-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9940118. Licensed CC0.

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