这项技术解决了冷冻电镜中对比度不足的核心瓶颈，做结构生物学和细胞成像的研究者可以直接关注——它将让AI辅助下的分子机器解析成为现实。
Alex Rives 与 UC Berkeley 联合宣布了激光相位板技术，这是原子分辨率成像领域的突破。该技术使用世界上最亮的连续波激光，强度是太阳表面的1亿倍，解决了电子显微镜中相位对比度难以实现的长期难题。在冷冻电子断层扫描中，低对比度一直阻碍着对细胞内除最大蛋白质以外的结构解析。激光相位板消除了这一障碍，结合AI进步，将开启结构生物学新前沿，使科学家能够看到细胞内的分子机器及其复杂动态系统。
Alex is one of my favourite researchers. Follow him if you don’t yet. Just wow! “100 million time...
Alex is one of my favourite researchers. Follow him if you don’t yet. Just wow! “100 million times the intensity of the surface of the sun.” Alex Rives @alexrives Together with UC Berkeley we are announcing the laser phase plate - a breakthrough in atomic resolution imaging. This is the brightest continuous wave laser in the world, 100 million times the intensity of the surface of the sun. Phase contrast plays an important role in microscopy, but it was thought close to impossible for electron microscopy, where it would require interfering with an electron beam. Holger Mueller and Robert Glaeser proposed exactly this using a standing wave laser. It has taken over 15 years to make this a reality. Biohub partnered with UC Berkeley and Mueller to support this work and to engineer and build the technology. Contrast has been the critical barrier to achieving atomic resolution imaging of the cell. In cryo-electron tomography, a cellular imaging technology that uses electron microscopy, the low contrast makes it impossible to resolve anything but the largest proteins within their cellular context. The laser phase plate removes that barrier. With advances in AI this breakthrough in contrast will start to open up a new frontier in structural biology, that will allow us to see the molecular machines of the cell, and how they assemble into far more complex and dynamic systems, and understand how they work. Your browser does not support the video tag. 🔗 View on Twitter 🔗 View Quoted Tweet 💬 7 🔄 2 ❤️ 12 👀 1605 📊 6 ⚡