2016

Outreach Efforts in 2016

Here is a brief listing of the events in the recent past where the Electron Microscopy Center (EMC) has had some sort of presence. This includes classes and presentations made on the IUB campus as well as attendance and participation at regional and national meetings. This listing does not include any of our many facility tours.

Classes

  • Early February
    Undergraduate students in the L313 Cell Biology Laboratory class (organized by Judy Surzycki) learned to use the JEOL JEM 1010 to examine virus samples and saw demonstrations of the JEOL JSM 5800LV and the microtomes.
  • Late March
    Undergraduate students in the M435 Viral Tissue Culture Laboratory class (organized by Prof. Tuli Mukhopadhyay) learned to use the JEOL JEM 1010 to examine virus samples and saw demonstrations of the JEOL JSM 5800LV and the microtomes.
  • Z620 or B680 (Electron Microscopy, Spring Semester)
    Starting this year, the staff of the Electron Microscopy Center (EMC) is teaching an eight week graduate level course on electron microscopy. The course was the second half of the semester and is designed so that students can take a separate eight week course on light microscopy (taught by Prof. Sid Shaw and Jim Powers) and then the eight week EM course (instead of the combined light and EM course taught in previous years). This new EM course is several weeks longer than in the past. This year, the emphasis is on EM for biology.
  • May 26 - 27
    The EMC ran a workshop (two afternoon sessions) built around using EMAN2 and relion to process a set of images of woodchuck hepatitis B virus that Joe Wang had recorded using the EMC's JEOL JEM 3200FS during the demonstration of the Direct Electron DE-12 camera in the fall of 2015. The data set for the workshop contained ten micrographs (roughly 2000 individual virus particles), and during the course of the workshop, the participants were able to generate three-dimensional reconstructions at a resolution of better than 15 Å.
  • Fall Semester
    Joe Wang lectured in Chemistry's graduate C680 Introduction to Quantitative Biology and Measurement class (organized by Prof. David Giedroc and Jon Karty).
  • Mid-September
    Undergraduate students in the L313 Cell Biology Laboratory class (organized by Judy Surzycki) learned to use the JEOL JEM 1010 to examine virus samples and saw demonstrations of the JEOL JSM 5800LV and the microtomes.

Meetings

  • February 20 - 24
    David Morgan (and Jim Powers from the LMIC) attended the annual national (international) meeting of the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities (ABRF) in Fort Lauderdale FL. The ABRF meetings bring together academic/research center core facility managers and administrators to discuss issues that are common not only to (for example) EM centers but rather common to EM, bioinformatics, mass spec, light microscopy and flow cytometry centers.
  • April 12 - 15
    Joe Wang was invited to speak at a symposium at the 3rd i-MANI symposium and Hands-on Workshop held in Tainan, Taiwan. Joe's talk was entitled "Structural Defects of in vitro Assembled Alphavirus Core-like Particles" and he also gave a hands-on workshop dealing with single particle reconstruction.
  • July 24 - 29
    Joe Wang attended the Virus Structure and Assembly Science Research Conference organized by the Federation of American Societies For Experimental Research (FASEB). He presented a poster there entitled "Self-assembly of an Alphavirus core-like particle is distinguished by strong intersubunit association energy and structural defects".
  • July 24 - 28
    Barry Stein attended the annual Microscopy and Microanalysis Meeting in Columbus, OH.
  • September 21 - 24
    Joe Wang attended the 2016 International HBV Meeting - The Molecular Biology of Hepatitis B Viruses in Seoul, Korea. Joe gave a presentation entitled "Importin β Can Bind Hepatitis B Virus Core Protein and Empty Core-Like Particles and Induce Structural Changes" in the Reverse Transcription and Morphogenesis section of their program.
  • October 5 - 7
    David Morgan attended the annual meeting of the Midwest Association of Core Directors (MWACD). MWACD is the midwest chapter of ABRF (the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities), an international organization that brings together administrators, directors and staff of core facilities involved in biological research at various universities, research intitutes and companies. The MWCAD Annual meeting in Cincinnati, OH, was hosted by the Cincinnati Children's Hospital and started with tours of several of its facilities. They also held an opening reception at the Cincinnati Zoo, and then had two days of talks about both science and core facility administration.