Grant Support

Microscopes

The RTSF cryo-EM facility houses two transmission electron microscopes (Arctica and Krios) and one focused ion beam scanning electron microscope (Hydra).

• ThermoFisher Talos Arctica: An 200 kV field emission microscope, the Arctica is an ideal instrument for grid and sample "screening" to optimize high-resolution structural studies. It is equipped with a Falcon 4i camera and a Selectris Energy filter, supported by the EPU and Tomo software packages.
• ThermoFisher Titan Krios G4i: A 300 kV field emission microscope routinely generating structures with better than 2 Å resolution. The Krios features a Falcon 4i camera and a SelectrisX Energy filter, with software support provided by EPU, Tomo, and EPUD.
• ThermoFisher Helios Hydra Bio FIB-SEM: The Hydra utilizes an inductively coupled plasma ion source with four available ion options (Xenon, Argon, Nitrogen, and Oxygen). The Hydra also features an Integrated Fluorescence Light Microscope Correlative System (iFLM) and the "Easylift" Nanomanipulator for cryo-lift-out.

Sample Preparation Equipment

The RTSF Cryo-EM Core facility provides a comprehensive suite of sample preparation equipment specifically designed for the biological sciences:

• Carbon Evaporator: Leica ACE600
• Plunge-Freezing: Two robotic devices (ThermoFisher Vitrobot Mark IV and Leica GP2)
• Glow Discharge: Pelco EasyGlow and GoQube Plus units
• Tissue Sectioning: Precisionary Compresstome VF-510-0Z
• High-Pressure Freezer: CryoCapCell
• Grid and Planchette Storage: Two Subangstrom long-term storage dewars for grid preservation

Computational Resources

The RTSF Cryo-EM facility provides all users with access to a complete DDN Solutions system for long-term data storage, boasting a capacity of >1PB. Data from all microscopes are seamlessly transferred to users via Globus.

Additionally, all cryo-EM researchers at MSU have access to dedicated GPU-enabled computation workstations located on the 5th floor of the Biochemistry Building on Wilson Road. Each system is pre-configured with several cryo-EM data reconstruction and analysis suites, including Cryosparc, Relion, IMOD and AreTOMO.

 

Computer	Details
Globus Workstation	Intel Xeon(R) CPU W- 2135 (6 cores) +NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti GPU
“Cryo-EM-3”	Intel Xeon(R) CPU W- 2155 (10 cores) +2 x NVIDIA Quadro P4000 GPU
“Cryo-EM-4”	Intel Xeon ® CPU E5-2683 V4 (32 cores) +4 NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti GPU
“Cryo-EM-5”	AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5955WX (16 cores) +2 NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti GPU
Krios – Live – Data Processing	AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7975WX (32 cores) +3 NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPU