The Rosalind Franklin Institute is welcoming Professor Stephen Muench on Thursday 12th June from 10:30 – 11:30.

To watch the seminar online, please sign up via the link below.

RAL site pass holders are welcome to attend in person (no registration required) in the Franklin’s first floor Hub. To join in person, please arrive in the R113 Franklin foyer at least 5 minutes before the start of the seminar and a member of the team will let you into the building.

Title:

Developing new (and old) approaches to sample preparation and time-resolved cryoEM.

Abstract:

The Muench group have been developing new approached for both sample preparation and time-resolved studies within single particle cryoEM. The time-resolved methodologies can mix and freeze a sample from the micro-second timescale but challenges still remain in obtaining good ice quality and studying longer time-scales >200ms without the thin film environment influencing the results.

Moreover, many devices require a complex setup and therefore uptake by the wider community has been slow. Here, I will discuss some of our new approaches with one having a simplified approach to make experiments easier and discuss some of our time-resolved work.

In conducting the time-resolved resolved work, we have also been studying how time influences particle behaviour on the specimen grid and how we could generate improved samples for cryoEM with sample preparation becoming a significant bottleneck in the field.

I will discuss our current understanding of issues that occur in the thin film during sample preparation such as protein modification, degradation and preferred orientation and the work we are doing to mitigate for them and produce better quality grids.

Biography:

Stephen Muench is currently a Professor in membrane biology and structural biology at the University of Leeds. His group has worked on a range of different systems and technologies from developing new small molecules, membrane protein scaffolds, biosensors and time-resolved approached.

Major contributions to the field include: (i) The use of EM to driver inhibitor design for membrane proteins such as TRPC1 and the bc 1 complex, (ii) development of time-resolved methodologies for cryoEM, (iii) better understanding of sample preparation within single particle cryoEM, (iv) work on SMA polymers and hybrid vesicles with block co-polymers to improve membrane protein lifetimes.