HILLSBORO, Ore. — Only two years after its formation, the Cambridge Pharmaceutical Cryo-EM Consortium is increasing capacity of Thermo Scientific cryo-EM instruments. Researchers from member companies use Thermo Scientific Krios G3i Cryo Transmission Electron Microscope (Cryo-TEM) instruments to support drug discovery for various therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular, oncology and the central nervous system. The new microscope will be housed at the University of Cambridge, Department of Materials and Metallurgy, and will be used to explore innovative applications of cryo-electron microscopy in materials research.

In 2016, Thermo Fisher Scientific partnered with five pharmaceutical companies (Astex Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, GSK, Heptares Therapeutics and UCB), the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB) and the University of Cambridge’s Nanoscience Centre to form the Cambridge Pharmaceutical Cryo-EM Consortium.

“The installation of this microscope and a suite of state-of-the-art instruments creates a fantastic platform for researchers at the University and in the surrounding industrial sector,” said Professor Mark Blamire, Head of Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy. “Access to the Krios microscope will enable us to develop novel cryo-EM methods to tackle a range of important and challenging materials systems.”

“Our cryo-EM instruments have been used to generate high resolution 3D reconstructions and are some of the most automated, easiest to use instruments on the market,” said Mike Shafer, president, materials and structural analysis, Thermo Fisher Scientific. “We are excited that the Cambridge Pharmaceutical Cryo-EM Consortium is using our technology to advance compelling research in the materials science space for industrial uses.”

The Krios G3i Cryo-TEM is an industry-leading cryo-EM designed specifically to provide the stability and automated operation needed to achieve near-atomic resolution in three dimensional (3D) models of proteins using single particle analysis (SPA) techniques and is transferable to materials science applications.

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