The Dutch Cryo-EM School will take place from 27 June to 02 July 2022 in Leiden and Delft. The aim of this school is to teach the basic principles and practical aspects of image processing to structural and molecular biologists wishing to determine macromolecular structures by cryoEM. The course will cover all aspects of cryoEM structure determination, ranging from sample preparation over data collection to processing and interpretation of high-resolution image data, for both single particle images and tomograms, and will be aimed at advanced PhD students and postdocs using cryoEM for structural analysis.

Application and registration:

The event is limited up to 20 participants. For selection purposes, please note that your application will not be considered without motivation.

During registration, please provide a brief motivation (max. 300 words) including a short description of your project, your level of prior experience with cryo-EM/ET and how you and your project will benefit from this school. You will also need to provide the name of your PI. The results will be announced approximately 2-3 weeks after the application deadline on 02 May 2022.

Registration fees:

There are no registration fees for participants from academia. The program includes lunch/coffee on all course days, and the course dinner on Wednesday 29 June. Transportation to and from the venues, and accommodation, are not included in the school and need to be arranged by the participants.

The 4 day workshop on Cryo-sectioning and Immuno- Electron Microscopy (EM) is meant for people willing to learn cryo-sectioning and Tokuyasu Technique for immune-EM. Experience in resin sectioning is not necessary, but is definitely an advantage. This workshop is hands-on in nature, although some topics will be also covered with lectures. The entire EM procedure from (live) specimen to imaging immuno-labeled ultrathin sections will be covered from start to finish. You will have the chance to use most of the workshop time in the lab working with standard specimens like cultured cells or tissues. Besides managing the ultra-cryo-microtome, the preparation of EM tools and other necessities will be covered.

We provide an excellent learning environment. When manual skills like ultrathin sectioning of resin blocks are being trained the participants will have their own ultra-cryo-microtome (often equipped with a camera) to practice on. The number of participants is limited to 12 people. We will provide you with a practical manual and detailed protocols covering the topics of the workshop.

For the preliminary program and a more elaborate list of topics please visit: https://www.cellbiology-utrecht.nl/electron-microscopy-courses/cryosectioning-and-immuno-electron-microscopy.html

The 3 day workshop on resin electron microscopy (EM) is suitable for people that do not have previous experience with standard electron microscopy sample preparation techniques. This workshop is primarily hand-on in nature, although some topics will be covered with lectures. The entire EM procedure from (live) specimen to imaging stained ultrathin resin sections will be covered from start to finish. You will have the chance to use most of the workshop time in the lab working with standard specimens like cultured cells or tissues. Besides embedding in a resin and managing the ultra-microtome, the preparation of EM tools and other necessities will be covered.

We provide an excellent learning environment. When manual skills like ultrathin sectioning of resin blocks are being trained the participants will have their own ultra-microtome (often equipped with a camera) to practice on. The number of participants is limited to 12 people. We will provide you with a practical manual and detailed protocols covering the topics of the workshop.

For the preliminary program and a more elaborate list of topics please visit: https://www.cellbiology-utrecht.nl/electron-microscopy-courses/resin-electron-microscopy.html

The Ultrapath Amsterdam meeting, 7-8 June 2022, will be a combination of Course and Congress. The Aim is to share knowledge on electron microscopy in the diagnosis and research of human diseases. The meeting will be an exchange of information, particularly ultrastructural and immunohistochemical, relevant to diagnostic pathology.

For: pathologists, residents and registrars in pathology, Ph.D. electron microscopists, electron microscopy technologists, research scientists. More information see:

https://ultrapath.microscopie.nl/

Join us for the next NEMI platform meeting in which Marijn van Huis give a colloquium.

Date: April 19th
Registration: link

Abstract

Advances in Liquid Phase Electron Microscopy: Imaging Strategies for Soft Materials and Controlled Motion of Nanoparticles 

In-situ cells developed for the transmission electron microscope (TEM) allow performing experiments on nanoscale materials in liquids and gases, even while heating or under application of electric fields, while imaging them at near-atomic resolution. Of these two, in particular liquid cell TEM (LC-TEM) imaging is particularly sensitive to e-beam effects [1]. In this seminar I will discuss recent progress made at Utrecht University in the imaging of induced transitions. The first model system is p-NIPAM, a thermoresponsive biocompatible polymer that reversibly compresses when heated from room temperature to a temperature of 40 °C and vice versa. When immersed in water and thus swollen, the density of p-NIPAM is almost the same as that of water, while it is extremely sensitive to e-beam irradiation. Eventually a suitable approach was found and the thermoresponsive response was successfully imaged [2]. The second model system is a ‘rattle particle’ consisting of a mobile core particle inside a larger silica shell where the porous shells are filled with liquid. Depending on the salt concentration in the liquid, the potentials between the core and shell could be adapted to confine the core particle at the center of the shell, or be adapted in such a way that the core particle could explore nearly the entire volume of the spherical cavity [3]. Finally, preliminary results on the application of an AC electric field on the rattles show that the direction of the motion of the cores, either parallel or orthogonal to the field, could be controlled depending on the frequency of the applied field. 

[1] T.A.J. Welling, S. Sadighikia, K. Watanabe, A. Grau-Carbonell, M. Bransen, D. Nagao, A. van Blaaderen, M.A. van Huis, ‘Observation of undamped 3D Brownian motion of nanoparticles using liquid-cell scanning transmission electron microscopy’, Part. Part. Syst. Charact. 37 (2020), 202000003, pp 1-10. DOI: 10.1002/ppsc.202000003. 

[2] A. Grau-Carbonell, F. Hagemans, M. Bransen, N. Elbers, R. J. A. van Dijk-Moes, S. Sadighikia, T. A. J. Welling, A. van Blaaderen, M. A. van Huis, ‘Direct in-situ characterization of the thermoresponsive and cononsolvent behavior of Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) microgels and shells with nanometer resolution’, in preparation. 

[3] T.A.J. Welling, K. Watanabe, A. Grau-Carbonell, J. de Graaf, D. Nagao, A. Imhof, M.A. van Huis, A. van Blaaderen, ‘Tunability of Interactions between the Core and Shell in Rattle-Type Particles Studied with Liquid-Cell Electron Microscopy’, ACS Nano 15 (2021) 11137-11149. DOI: 0.1021/acsnano.1c03140

NEMI and NeCEN are happy to invite you to the postponed NEMI day, which will now take place 22^nd March 2022 (9:00-17:00) at the beautiful venue of Naturalis Leiden. 

For more info on the program, registration and more: click here

Tuesday, March 15th, 16:00 CET, Seminar:

• Guido Stam (Leiden University): Growing visible-light photocathodes with pulsed laser deposition characterized by Low Energy Electron Microscopy 
• Ingeborg Schreur (Eindhoven University of Technology: Diving inside the world around SEM

Register for the NEMI platform meetings on Zoom via this link

NEMI PLATFORM
The NEMI platform is a bottom-up initiative: everyone is encouraged to propose seminars, courses and other activities (link). Seminars take place on the third Tuesday of the month. Attendance is open to everyone!

More info: click here

Date and time

8, 11, and 17 February 2022

Overview

Clear presentation of research output in a scientific publication, as a PhD thesis, or on a website, has become an essential yet challenging task for anyone in the data-rich environment of life sciences. Typical examples include producing publication-grade figures from raw graphics objects (images or graphs) or compiling the PhD thesis from graphics and text data. Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) is a powerful software package containing applications that can make these tasks substantially lighter. Yet we experience in our daily interactions with the 500+ users of the AMC Cellular Imaging core facility that most PhD students have only limited understanding of the applications, capabilities and workflows of the CC workhorses – Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat and InDesign.

Understanding CC combined with basic training, driven by the needs of PhD students, will increase the quality and communicability of your scientific output, and teach valuable skills that can be transferred to any modern creative or production environment.

Aims and scope

• General understanding of computer-generated graphical data formats, with special focus on pixel- and vector-based graphics.
• Detailed understanding of optimal workflows to generate publication-quality figures, poster and PhD thesis from any graphical or text data.
• Focused (limited) training in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat and InDesign, tailored to the needs of these workflows.

For more information and registration please click here

The NVvM and NEMI are organizing the third Materials Science EM meeting which will take place on Wednesday February 2, 2022. Please find the program below. The meeting will be online via Microsoft Teams. The meeting is organized by Sonia Conesa Boj (TU Delft) and Marijn van Huis (Utrecht University). Please register for this meeting by sending an email to m.a.vanhuis@uu.nl. A link to the online meeting will be sent to all participants in January 2022.

Program: 

09.45-10.00   Online arrival and home-made coffee; opening at 10.00 am 

10.00-10.45   Heiner Friedrich (TU Eindhoven) 

10.45-11.30   Majid Ahmadi (Univ. Groningen) 

11.30-12.15   Maarten Bolhuis (TU Delft) 

12.15-13.00   Lunch 

13.00-13.45   Rafael Gregorio Mendes (Utrecht Univ.) 

13.45-14.30   Wiebke Albrecht (AMOLF Amsterdam) 

14.30-15.15   Gertjan Koster (University of Twente) 

15.15-15.30   Discussion and closure 

Invited participating groups: 

• UU (Marijn van Huis, Petra de Jongh, Martyn Drury) 
• TUD (Sonia Conesa Boj, Jacob Hoogenboom) 
• TU/e (Heiner Friedrich, Jom Luiten, Marcel Verheijen) 
• AMOLF (Wiebke Albrecht, Erik Garnett) 
• RUG (Bart Kooi) 
• University of Twente (Gertjan Koster) 
• Leiden University (Sense Jan van der Molen) 
• Industrial partners