Automated Electron Microscopy

The goal of this project is to develop a system for automatically acquiring  and analyzing large numbers of high quality images from a transmission electron microscope in a routine, robust and efficient manner. In particular we are developing applications that allow for data collection from specimens preserved in vitreous ice. The general problem of automating the acquisition of micrographs is of great interest to a large number of diverse scientific communities. It is also a highly complex challenge as in the general case it means that we must capture and model the behavior of an intelligent operator.

• Subprojects
• Automated Acquisition of Transmission Electron Micrographs
• An Intelligent Microscope for Transmission Electron Microscopy
• An Integrated System for Molecular Microscopy
• Experiments
  • TMV 5/17/2000
  • P97 10/26/2000
• Software
• emscope A multi-layered and modular software architecture which satisfies the requirements for developing applications that are portable, extensible and distributed.
• viewit A multidimensional image processing package.
• suprim is a flexible, modular software package intended primarily for the processing of transmission electron micrographs
• Publications
• ITG Forums on Automated Electron Microscopy
  • An interactive user interface for automated acquisition of transmission electron micrographs, 27 July 2000
  • Automated filament selection and targeting for automated electron microscopy, 4 May 2000
  • Improving the positional accuracy of the goniometer on the Phillips CM series TEM, 22 July 1999
  • Automated data collection for cryo-electron microscopy, 17 June 1999
  • Improved goniometer accuracy in an automated TEM system, 22 October 1998
  • Leginon: automated acquisition of 1000 electron micrographs a day, 10 September 1998
• Sponsors
• National Science Foundation DBI-9730056, DBI-9904547
• National Institutes of Health 1 RO1 GM61939-01 
• International Business Machines SUR Program

For more information contact Leginon.