In recent years, tremendous progress has been made in structural studies on biological macromolecules and assemblies using cryo-electron microscopy and electron crystallography. As more and more genome projects for human and other organisms are completed, the focus of biological research is shifted to proteins, protein complexes, organelles and cells. Along with X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy, cryo-electron microscopy and electron crystallography are playing increasingly important roles in structural biology research.
To train the next generation of scientists in this exciting field, a workshop on cryo-electron microscopy of macromolecular assemblies will be held at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, July 14-16, 2008. The workshop will cover electron crystallography, single particle cryo-electron microscopy, and electron tomography. Both basic principles of these techniques and their state-of-the-art applications to biological systems will be taught at the school, and practical sessions may also be organized to show hand-on experience in cryo-electron microscopy as well as various image processing programs. Graduate students and postdocs who currently work in or who are interested in joining the field are particularly encouraged to attend. Importantly, a number of leading scientists will be lecturing at the school; young scientists will have plenty of opportunities to directly interact with these leading scientists.
A poster for the workshop can be downloaded here. A web site for the worshop in Chinese is here.
This workshop is organized under the auspice of
Commission on Electron Diffraction of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr)
Chinese Crystallography Society (CCrS)
Chinese Society of Electron Microscopy (CSEM)
