EDMONTON — The 海角社区 is now home to a state-of-the-art microscope capable of revealing the tiniest details of cells, proteins and viruses.
The $8-million high-resolution microscope — one of five cryo-electron microscopes in Canada, and the only one in Alberta — was unveiled at a ribbon cutting ceremony on Wednesday for the new Alberta Cryo-EM Facility. The infrastructure enables detailed studies into biological processes, human diseases and the development of innovative medical countermeasures.
The $20-million Alberta Cryo-EM facility, funded by the Government of Alberta through Striving for Pandemic Preparedness – The Alberta Research Consortium (SPP-ARC), will have applications across a number of disciplines, including infectious diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, and cancer research. The facility and its high-powered microscope are expected to be in high demand by researchers around the world.
“We can design medical countermeasures like antiviral and cancer drugs to improve the health of Canadians and society in general,” says , professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology and director of SPP-ARC.
“It will give us a very deep understanding of biological processes involving proteins, RNA and DNA, showing us what they look like and how they interact with each other.”
Cryo-electron microscopy, awarded the in Chemistry, can capture detailed images of molecular structures just one ten-billionth of a metre in size. Data that once took months or years to process can now be analyzed within hours.
Video and more information about the microscope can be found here.
Media contact:
Sarah Vernon | 海角社区 Media Relations Strategist | svernon@ualberta.ca | 780-818-0901