MeetingReport


Microscopy & Microanalysis 2019 Alice Dohnalkova, Program Chair Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352


alice.dohnalkova@pnnl.gov Te Microscopy & Microanalysis 2019 (M&M 2019)


meeting was held this past August 4–8 in wonderful Portland, Oregon. Te conference was co-sponsored by the Microscopy Society of America (MSA), the Microanalysis Society (MAS), and the International Field Emission Society (IFES). Te meeting hosted a record participation of 3,516 attendees (2,074 scientific participants and 1,442 exhibitors) from over 40 countries and featured 1,412 scientific papers (749 platform presentations and 663 posters). Te M&M Expo Exhibition showcased state- of-the-art instruments, microscopy support equipment, and specialized services from 136 companies from around the world. Tere were two very well-attended pre-meeting congresses.


On Saturday, the third annual “Pre-meeting Congress for Early Career Professionals in Microscopy and Microanalysis” was hosted by the MSA Student Council (Figure 1). Tis Congress included a day full of seminars, fruitful discussions, and great opportunities for networking that culminated with a lovely dinner cruise on the Willamette River. Te second pre-meeting event, “NexTEM: Next-Generation Transmission Electron Microscopy – Beyond Current Limits of Resolution, Environment, and Data Analysis” took place on Sunday and was sponsored by the MSA Aberration-Corrected Microscopy Focused Interest Group, as well as by several vendors. It presented lectures on the latest devel- opments and advances in detectors, in situ imaging and analysis, electron spectroscopies, and machine learning topics. Te opening plenary session featured two Nobel Prize


laureates, Drs. Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson, who presented truly inspirational talks on their achievements in cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). Both speakers were awarded, along with their colleague Dr. Jacques Dubochet, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2017 for “Developing Cryo- Electron Microscopy for the High-Resolution Structure Deter- mination of Biomolecules in Solution.” First, Professor Joachim Frank (Molecular Biophysics and


Biological Sciences, Columbia University) presented his work, “Studying Kinetics by Counting Particles in Time-Resolved Cryo-EM,” and addressed to what extent the method of kinetic measurement can be used in practice (Figure 2, leſt). Professor Frank discussed various obstacles that must be considered in the precise quantification of the numbers of particles in experiments and provided examples of time-resolved cryo-EM by measuring the kinetics of macromolecular reactions in a sequence of exper- iments with microfluidic chips designed for imaging at a series of time points. He concluded that in the near future, a reliable method for measuring reaction kinetics of macromolecules by counting particles in micrographs collected by cryo-EM will be a significant addition to the biophysics tool chest. Te second plenary lecture, “Single Particle Cryo-EM: Poten- tial for Further Improvement,” was delivered by Dr. Richard


12 doi:10.1017/S1551929519001214


Figure 1: Members of the MSA Student Council. From left to right: Cameron Varano (Penn State University), Aubrey Penn (North Carolina State University), Erica Stevens (University of Pittsburgh), Jackson Spurling (University of Ten- nessee), and Abinash Kumar (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).


Henderson (Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB), Cambridge, UK) ( Figure 2, right). Dr. Hen- derson discussed technical limitations that prevent cryo-EM from reaching its ultimate potential and presented quantitative evalua- tions of effects such as specimen motion and charge buildup and fluctuation that can contribute to information loss in single-par- ticle cryo-EM. Dr. Henderson further discussed aspects that are critical for achieving the goal of making single-particle cryo-EM analysis less expensive and more widely accessible. Te plenary session continued with the presentation of


awards that honored numerous scientists and students. Philip E. Batson (Rutgers University, Department of Physics and Astron- omy) and Bridget Carragher (Simons Electron Microscopy Cen- ter, New York Structural Biology Center) were honored with MSA Distinguished Scientist Awards in Physical and Biological Sciences, respectively. Additionally, eight of our colleagues were installed as MSA Fellows: Wilbur C. Bigelow, Edward D. Boyes,


Figure 2: Prof. Joachim Frank (left) and Dr. Richard Henderson (right) present their plenary addresses at M&M 2019.


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