Nobel Prize In Chemistry Shared By 3 For Cryo-Electron Microscopy (www.cbc.ca) 27
Dave Knott writes: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded on Wednesday to researchers who developed cryo-electron microscopy, which is described as a way to create detailed images of the molecules that drive life -- a technology that allows scientists to visualize molecular processes they had never previously seen. This is decisive for both the basic understanding of life's chemistry and for the development of pharmaceuticals. From the Nobel committee's press release: "Electron microscopes were long believed to only be suitable for imaging dead matter, because the powerful electron beam destroys biological material. But in 1990, Richard Henderson succeeded in using an electron microscope to generate a three-dimensional image of a protein at atomic resolution. This breakthrough proved the technology's potential. Joachim Frank made the technology generally applicable. Between 1975 and 1986 he developed an image processing method in which the electron microscope's fuzzy two-dimensional images are analyzed and merged to reveal a sharp three-dimensional structure. Jacques Dubochet added water to electron microscopy. Liquid water evaporates in the electron microscope's vacuum, which makes the biomolecules collapse. In the early 1980s, Dubochet succeeded in vitrifying water -- he cooled water so rapidly that it solidified in its liquid form around a biological sample, allowing the biomolecules to retain their natural shape even in a vacuum. Following these discoveries, the electron microscope's every nut and bolt have been optimized. The desired atomic resolution was reached in 2013, and researchers can now routinely produce three-dimensional structures of biomolecules."
Big deal (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Whoever wins the Nobel Peace Prize this year, I can guarantee that it won't be the one guy you think should win the Nobel Peace Prize. Anyway, he's busy tossing store-brand paper towels to people who've been through a hurricane and couldn't make it to the ceremony.
Re: Cool (Score:1)
They are mathematical models based on many thousands of 2D grainy images. So there is signal averaging and a process called tomography to reconstruct the 3D model.
Every model of a protein you have ever seen is in many respects a mathematical model. Maths is used extensively.
Re: Are they metallic? (Score:1)
Turns out there is a lot you don't know about EM
Wow (Score:3)
Somehow I missed knowing that we could do this. It is amazingly cool, and is absolutely a Nobel level advance.
Re: Changing chemistry (Score:1)
The conformation (shape) of proteins determined by this method correspond to the conformation of the same protein as determined by other methods. At least in these cases freezing the sample doesn't seem to effect its shape, at least at the resolution this method can see.
Following the Wiley prize, also this year (Score:2)
Related: http://newsroom.wiley.com/pres... [wiley.com]
It's not quite clear why there are different people for both pizes, though.
Background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Does this mean cryogenics theoretically posible? (Score:2)