Structura Biotechnology

💡 When working with terabytes of #cryoEM data, on-the-fly processing can be a game changer! Beyond saving time, #CryoSPARC Live helps researchers make informed decisions throughout data collection and processing 👉 www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKfv...

🎥 In this video, we compare conventional batch-based processing with the streamlined approach offered by CryoSPARC Live, explore its advantages, and walk through setting up a Live session, from preprocessing, particle picking, 2D classification and particle curation.

🔬 Understanding how #cryoEM images are formed and what information they contain can help assess data quality, recognize acquisition artifacts, and make more informed processing decisions.

🔎 From contrast in cryo-EM to waves, vectors, and aliasing, these chapters explores key concepts that shape what information is captured, and how it appears in the images we work with.

🔬 Understanding how #cryoEM images are formed and what information they contain can help assess data quality, recognize acquisition artifacts, and make more informed processing decisions.

🧬 In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we’re sharing a structural biology story about NBCn1, a plasma membrane transporter that helps breast cancer cells regulate their intracellular pH and survive in an acidic tumor microenvironment. Read more on the #CryoSPARC Blog! 👉 bit.ly/4jbfn88

Breast cancer remains one of the leading causes of cancer-related death among women worldwide, and understanding the molecular mechanisms that support tumor cell survival remains an important area of research.

🔎 A classic #cryoEM particle curation conundrum: 2D or 3D classification? "Decoy Classification" using Heterogeneous Refinement in #CryoSPARC curates particles directly in 3D, helping remove junk particles while preserving valuable views. Read more in the CryoSPARC Blog 👉 bit.ly/3SXfwS0

Why curate in 3D? 🔬 Valuable but underrepresented particle views can sometimes be difficult to recognize in 2D classes. Decoy Classification provides an alternative way to curate particles while recovering the range of views present in the dataset.

🚀 Register now for the 2026 Stanford-SLAC CryoEM Center (S2C2) Data Processing Workshop, December 9-11! We’re excited to contribute as #CryoSPARC instructors to this hybrid workshop, together with instructors from CryoDRGN, EMAN2 and AreTomo! More info and registration 👉 bit.ly/4gXbnXd

Bringing together expertise and perspectives from across the #cryoEM community, the workshop will cover approaches for addressing key challenges in data processing. We’ll dive into image processing fundamentals, how to tackle sample heterogeneity, and share practical strategies and insights.

💡 The idea is simple: getting to know your data is often the shortcut to more efficient particle picking. In our latest #CryoSPARC blog post, we cover how to speed up #cryoEM data processing through efficient early curation of your dataset. 👉 cryosparc.com/blog/curatio...

Using the Micrograph Junk Detector and Micrograph Denoiser, together with decoy classification strategies to clean up the initial particle stack and generate templates, this approach helps sift through large data volumes, heterogeneity, low signal-to-noise ratio, and the presence of contaminants.

💡 The idea is simple: getting to know your data is often the shortcut to more efficient particle picking. In our latest #CryoSPARC blog post, we cover how to speed up #cryoEM data processing through efficient early curation of your dataset. 👉 cryosparc.com/blog/curatio...

💊 The Pain Paradox: Activating TRPV1 to Silence Its Response - Researchers leveraged rational drug design, functional experiments, and #cryoEM to characterize a new capsaicin-inspired TRPV1 agonist with prolonged analgesic effects. Read more in the #CryoSPARC Blog 👉 cryosparc.com/blog/trpv1-m...

TRPV1 helps sensory neurons detect potentially harmful stimuli, but activation is only part of the story: prolonged stimulation can also drive the channel toward desensitization, reducing its responsiveness.

🛠️ Even the most carefully managed IT environments need to be prepared for the unexpected. In #CryoSPARC v5, we introduced Instance Recovery, a built-in recovery system for unforeseen database loss or corruption, adding another layer of resilience to our #cryoEM software. Read more 👉 bit.ly/4xlZMGS

- Recovery files are created automatically every hour on all #CryoSPARC v5+instances. - The small recovery files can be routinely copied to additional backup locations. - The recovery is fail-safe, and inaccessible project directories can still be recovered and manually re-attached.

🔬Malaria Invasion at Molecular Resolution: From Protein Inhibitors to Membrane Remodeling In a recent Cell publication, researchers at Columbia University resolved the endogenous structure of the malaria moving junction staple using #cryoEM. Read more in the #CryoSPARC Blog 👉 bit.ly/46aX6jl

The moving junction structure and its native membrane context informed the de novo design of a protein binder that blocks PfAMA1–PfRON2 binding and inhibits parasite invasion. It also revealed membrane-remodeling features, suggesting an active role in reshaping the host membrane during invasion.

🔬Malaria Invasion at Molecular Resolution: From Protein Inhibitors to Membrane Remodeling In a recent Cell publication, researchers at Columbia University resolved the endogenous structure of the malaria moving junction staple using #cryoEM. Read more in the #CryoSPARC Blog 👉 bit.ly/46aX6jl

#SingleParticle #cryo-EM can provide high-resolution insights into parasite invasion mechanisms, revealing not only the biology underlying infection, but also new opportunities to target key proteins at specific stages of the invasion process.

🚀 Preprint alert: cFAR and Relative Signal: Diagnosing Preferred Orientation in Single-Particle #CryoEM Explore how cFAR, tFAR, and Relative Signal provide complementary diagnostics for preferred orientation, tested across 14 #EMPIAR datasets and compared with established metrics 👉 bit.ly/4wBY1Ev

In this latest preprint, we start from the principles of #cryo-EM 3D reconstruction and GSFSC, and explain how cFAR and tFAR provide useful diagnostics for preferred orientation. Plus, Relative Signal highlights under-sampled viewing directions!

🔄 Mixing Two Cryo-EM Datasets on Purpose: A Cryo-EM Heterogeneity Challenge What happens when you deliberately mix two #cryo-EM datasets containing different conformational states? Our latest #CryoSPARC blog distills the practical lessons from the accompanying FaNaC1 case study 👉 bit.ly/3ScIZa3

The challenge quickly becomes more than simply separating two classes: - Is that ligand density real, or should the particles’ poses be updated? - How and when do we model continuous heterogeneity? - Are there enough particles sampling intermediate conformations?

🔄 Mixing Two Cryo-EM Datasets on Purpose: A Cryo-EM Heterogeneity Challenge What happens when you deliberately mix two #cryo-EM datasets containing different conformational states? Our latest #CryoSPARC blog distills the practical lessons from the accompanying FaNaC1 case study 👉 bit.ly/3ScIZa3

🇨🇦 This week we’re at IUCr 2026 in Calgary! Join us during Poster Session 4B (Sunday 15th, 5-6 PM MDT), at poster #486, where we’ll be presenting: 🔹 Updates and upcoming developments in #CryoSPARC 🔹 Advances in automated #cryo-EM data processing 👉 www.iucr2026.org