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Health & Science3h 8m ago
UC Berkeley physicists have adapted the phase contrast technique to the electron microscope by adding a laser phase plate, which has the potential to greatly improve cryoelectron microscopy and cryoelectron tomography.
UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Redwood City, California
Who
UC Berkeley physicists, Holger Müller, Petar Petrov, Jessie Zhang, Jonathan Remis, Hang Cheng, Jeremy Axelrod, Eric Cooper, Ian Hicklin, Shahar Sandhaus, Cooper Schnurr, Robert Glaeser, Bridget Carragher, David Agard, Pavel Olshin
What
UC Berkeley physicists have adapted the phase contrast technique to the electron microscope by adding a laser phase plate, which has the potential to greatly improve cryoelectron microscopy and cryoelectron tomography.
When
Thu, 11 Jun 2026 18:06:00 GMT · 3h 8m ago
Where
UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Redwood City, California ·
Why
The laser phase plate boosts contrast for small molecules and structures inside cells, addressing the current limitation of clear imaging for most human proteins with existing cryo-EM technology.
The Frontline Impact
How this affects you
This breakthrough promises to make visible what was previously unseen within living cells, potentially revolutionizing the understanding of diseases and accelerating new drug discovery by enabling clearer images of most proteins down to one-third the size of those currently challengeable by present machines.
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