Microscope technique brings big resolution at low temperatures

Cryo-electron microscopy is a technique that can be used to determine the structures of biological molecules like proteins to high resolution.

Recent changes in technology and computing over the past few years have suddenly made it possible to visualize proteins at near-atomic resolution, meaning that the positions of individual amino acids and even atoms can be directly determined by this method.

The video shown here was animated in the Subramaniam Lab, and the final narrated version was produced by Science.

For more information, read our publications about the structure of beta-galactosidase determined to high resolution, or see the “Visualizing proteins by cryo-EM” entry in our image gallery.