About the Practical Course
The rise in popularity of structural approaches, in particular the advent of the cryo-EM “resolution revolution” has resulted in a dire need for improved strategies for sample production and characterization to prevent congestion in the workflow. This advanced EMBO course will train participants (mainly PhD students and postdocs) with the state-of-the-art approaches for the preparation of large macromolecular assemblies in view of structural studies.
Special emphasis will be placed on:
(i) The latest advances in recombinant expression for reconstitution of multi-component samples and in the development of pipelines for purification of complexes from endogenous sources using CRISPR/Cas9 edited cell lines or high affinity nanobodies.
(ii) Biophysical techniques for quality assessment of protein samples (homogeneity, stability, hydrodynamic radius, mass), for characterization of protein interactions (affinity, kinetic parameters, size of complexes), and for a first structural characterization using mass spectrometry (stoichiometry, accessibility, and spatial proximity).
(iii) Specimen preparation for cryo-EM grids by standard and latest-generation high-speed freezing and their evaluation on cryo electron microscopes & image analysis.
About EMBO Courses and Workshops
EMBO Courses and Workshops are selected for their excellent scientific quality and timelines, provision of good networking activities for all participants and speaker gender diversity (at least 40% of speakers must be from the underrepresented gender).
Organisers are encouraged to implement measures to make the meeting environmentally more sustainable.
