Herewith details for the next Frontiers in Microscopy and Microanalysis Seminar - Fundamentals of Electron Crystallography and its Application in Structure Determination. Presented by Dr Hongyi (Justin) Xu from the Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry, Stockholm University
Date: Wednesday, 5th September 2018
Time: 2pm – 3pm
Venue: Level 1 Seminar Room, AIBN Building # 75
Electron crystallography is a topic in the intersection between electron microscopy and crystallography. Electrons have unique properties and are complementary to X-rays and neutrons. They interact with matter 104 times stronger than do X-rays and can be used for studying crystals with 108 times smaller volumes than with X-rays. Prof. Xiaodong Zou’s group at Stockholm University is specialized in developing and applying the electron crystallography methods for crystal structure determination. This includes both analysis of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) images and quantitative analysis of electron diffraction (ED) patterns. Electron crystallography can now be used for determining the crystal structures of inorganic materials, organic compounds, and proteins from micron- and nano-sized crystals.
In this presentation, an overview of electron crystallography is firstly introduced, followed by presenting some of specific subjects, including developing new methods and optimise existing methods to be able to routinely collect 3D electron diffraction data from nano- and micrometre-sized 3D protein crystals for structure determination. This highly accessible method is complementary to synchrotron X-ray techniques, X-ray free electron lasers and single particle Cryo-EM (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2017).
Bio: Dr. Hongyi Xu received his Bachelor Degree (BE with Honours, Mechatronics, 2008) and PhD in Materials Engineering (electron microscopy and III-V semiconductor nanowires, 2013) at the University of Queensland. He was then awarded a Wenner Gren Scholarship and worked in the Stockholm University, Sweden to develop electron crystallography methods for the structure determination of beam sensitive inorganic materials. In 2015, he initiated the project to study protein crystals using electron crystallography in Xiaodong Zou’s Group. Dr. Xu received a starting grant from the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) to further develop electron crystallography methods for studying protein structures from micron/nano-sized crystals in 2017. He is now a researcher at the Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry, Stockholm University, Sweden.
