Electron Microscopy course – The Basics: from A to W

In recent years, Electron Microscopy (EM) has rapidly developed as a powerful research tool for high-resolution imaging, leading to high-ranking papers, a Nobel price and recently in The Netherlands to a big NWO award. New, more powerful electron microscopes and the possibility to work at very low temperatures (cryo-EM), have made it possible to achieve atomic resolutions. In addition, combined light and electron microscopy (CLEM; correlative microscopy) now allows precise detection of fluorescently labelled molecules in high resolution images of cells and tissues. During this course, you will be introduced to all these novel developments. You will learn to use both transmission (TEM) as well as scanning electron microscopes (SEM) with different detectors. You will perform classical techniques for specimen preparation, like resin embedding of cells and tissues and negative staining of small structures like virus particles, as well as cryo-techniques for both TEM and SEM. The course will also include tips and tricks to perform CLEM.

Aim and scope

After this course, you will have insight into the possibilities of electron microscopy as a research tool and are able to decide whether you should use SEM, TEM or CLEM for your analysis. You will be able to operate an EM at basic level, make images and perform basic techniques of sample preparation. To benefit optimally from this course you will need some understanding of microscopes in general, but it is not necessary to have experience with EM.

Former occurrences of this course

23-27 September 2019