From the Editor Nobel Prize


T e Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize for Chemistry to Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank, and Richard Henderson “for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution.” It is interesting to note that each of these awardees was previously honored by the Microscopy Society of America with its Distinguished Scientist Award (Biological Science): Dubochet (2009), Frank (2003), and Henderson (2005).


Two facts have long been known: biological molecules exist in a water environment, and the transmission electron microscope has the potential to image atoms. But there were two major problems. Biological molecules are easily damaged by the electron beam, and the microscope vacuum makes imaging in liquid water impractical. T e fi rst problem was surmounted by Richard Henderson’s group in 1975 by imaging a regular array of molecules with as few electrons as possible. By averaging a repeating motif, the “electron dose” given to each motif was reduced, and summed motif images produced a higher-resolution image. Henderson’s group achieved near-atomic resolution in 1990. Henderson’s early work was with the protein bacterial rhodopsin, which is embedded in a membrane as an array of identical molecules. While Henderson knew in principle that his approach could be extended to isolated, asymmetric molecules, the method to do it resulted from Frank’s work.


Joachim Frank’s group developed a computational method (1975) to identify and “classify”


many diff erent views of the same molecule. Next, Frank’s group came up with a computational method that assigned a viewing angle to each example of the molecule (1987) so that the diff erent views could be projected into an averaged 3D reconstruction of the molecule. But it was the work of Jacques Dubochet that made possible electron microscopy of molecules in their native water environment. Normally, when water freezes ice crystals form, which damage the molecule and interfere with imaging. In 1981 Dubochet’s group published a method to freeze the water in a “vitreous” (glass-like) state, which preserves native biological structure, facilitates electron imaging, and avoids the need for chemical treatment or staining. In Henderson’s fi rst EM work, water was replaced by a glucose solution, and he did not achieve near-atomic resolution until he used vitrifi ed frozen samples. Dubochet’s comprehensive paper describing the states of water in the electron microscope was published in 1988.


While the pioneering work was largely carried out in the 1970s and 1980s, the introduction of direct-electron-detector cameras for the electron microscope in 2013 (partly carried out in association with Richard Henderson) made possible reconstructions with resolution better than 2 Ångströms. T is camera improved the signal-to-noise ratio and recorded each image as a series of frames, allowing correction for movement of the molecule during exposure. Content for this editorial was provided by MSA Archivist Mike Marko and the Nobel Prize for


Chemistry offi cial website.


Charles Lyman Editor-in-Chief


Publication Objective: to provide information of interest to microscopists.


Microscopy Today is a controlled-circulation trade magazine owned by the Microscopy Society of America that is published six times a year in the odd months. Editorial coverage spans all microscopy techniques including light microscopy, scanning probe microscopy, electron microscopy, ion-beam techniques, and the wide range of microanalytical methods. Readers and authors come from both the life sciences and the physical sciences. The typical length of an article is about 2,000 words plus fi gures and tables; feature articles are longer. Interested authors should consult “Instructions for Contributors” on the Microscopy Today website: www.microscopy-today.com.


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Editorial Board Nasim Alem, Penn State University Arlan Benscoter, Lehigh University John Bozzola, Southern Illinois University Peter Crozier, Arizona State University Vinayak Dravid, Northwestern University David Grubb, Cornell University Bryan Huey, University of Connecticut Heather Lowers, U.S. Geological Survey John Mackenzie, North Carolina State Univ. Paul Maddox, U. of North Carolina–Chapel Hill Ania Majewska, U. Rochester Med School Joseph Michael, Sandia National Labs Caroline Miller, Indiana University Brian M. Patterson, Los Alamos National Lab John Reffner, John Jay College, SUNY Ian Robertson, University of Wisconsin Phillip Russell, Appalachian State University Glenn Shipley, Citizen Microscopist Robert Simmons, Georgia State University Bradley Thiel, SUNY Polytechnic Institute Simon Watkins, University of Pittsburgh Cynthia Zeissler, Nat. Inst. of Stds. and Tech. (NIST)


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