Project Summary – Core B – Cryo-Electron Microscopy Core The TBSGC will expand its capabilities in structural biology by incorporating cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) as a means to study the structures of proteins that are either not amenable to crystallography, or importantly when crystallography and cryo-EM can be used to “combine” component x-ray structures into large macromolecular complexes. Recent advances in single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) have enabled the structure determination of large macromolecular complexes to atomic resolution. This breakthrough is mostly attributed to the development of the instrumentation needed to acquire better images and the software to more reliably process and validate the results. This is especially true for very large protein complexes, like the ribosome, as well as membrane proteins. The core lab at Texas A&M has state of the art instrumentation and expertise through Dr. Junjie Zhang’s group. Dr. Zhang will use the Texas A&M EM facility which is a fully staffed laboratory for help with administrative aspects and even some of the sample preparation and data collection for core samples.