A new cryo-electron microscope was delivered to the IBS on December 07, 2018, replacing the Polara electron microscope. This electron microscope, a ThermoFisher Glacios, has been funded by CEA, CNRS, ESRF and FRISBI.
The Glacios is an ultra-stable, state-of-the-art 200 kV, FEG electron microscope equipped with an automatic sample loading and changing system, a grid holder system compatible with Krios microscopes, a Falcon II direct electron detector coupled with an automatic data collection system (EPU) and a CETA CMOS camera. The K2 Summit direct electron detector that was installed on the Polara will also be retrofitted to this microscope in the near future. In parallel, the CETA camera will be upgraded to a "SPEED" level. Thanks to this microscope, we will be able to collect high resolution data, but also to screen grids for quality and select the best one to be transferred to an even more powerful microscope : Krios for example. This latter possibility is of special interest for the ESRF who is part of our project. It will therefore strengthen our existing collaboration with the ESRF and allow the Krios team to check some ESRF user grids on the Glacios microscope. This microscope will be used for classical "single particle" cryo imaging, cryo electron tomography and, thanks to the speed option of the CETA camera, to optimize the freezing and the data collection conditions in micro electron diffraction.
The microscope was installed in December, acceptance tests were carried out in January. The Glacios will be accessible in a service mode in March. Like for the Polara, this new microscope will be accessible directly, via FRISBI or via Instruct for national or international users.
Contacts : G. Schoehn and E. Neumann for the ISBG/IBS Cryo-electron microscopy platform, ibs-plateforme-em.contact@ibs.fr.