Training Programme at OIST

Purpose :

To increase the cryoEM community in Japan it is essential to disseminate the technology on a broader scale and give young, gifted scientists the opportunity to learn sample preparation, imaging and data analysis. The here suggested programme will contribute to propagating the technology and skills of structural analysis by cryoEM and increase the network of cryoEM users and specialists throughout Japan and Asia. The collaborator of the applicant, the trainee, will, where possible, work on the applicant’s own sample to increase the number of structures analysed in the BINDS project and to make this internship programme more attractive for the applicant.

Approach:

• IMG accepts a collaborator, the  trainee, of the applicant for structural analysis support through BINDS for a 4 weeks stay at the Imaging Facility of OIST and provides intensive hands-on training for sample preparation that the trainee becomes an independent and autonomous specialist.
• The trainee will learn how to check the sample quality by negative staining and then prepare high quality cryo-samples. (The other quality tests must be done in the lab of the applicant before acceptance to the internship programme.)
• The trainee will be familiarised to operate FEI electron microscopes and the EPU software used for acquiring images for single particle analysis.
• Once the cryo-sample is prepared at the necessary quality, IMG acquires high resolution data for structural analysis together with the trainee within the BINDS allocated beam time on OIST’s high-end cryo-electron microscopes (to mention, Arctica and Krios).

Targeted trainees : Ph. D. students, postdocs, technicians, or other staff members assigned by the applicant

For further information please contact:  Toshiaki Mochizuki (toshiaki.mochizuki@oist.jp)