Courses and Workshops

eBIC offers a number of specialist courses & workshops which we open to the community. Normally these are in collaboration with or supported by other cryo-EM facilities nationally and internationally.

From April 2021, virtual courses & workshops were introduced. Workshops for cryo-EM sample preparation will still be held on-site at eBIC. We continue to assess the most effective and efficient way to deliver our workshops and for maximum benefit to the community.

eBIC courses and workshops will also be announced on the Training Event Calendar page.

Upcoming courses and workshops at Diamond can also be found via the following link: Diamond Events

The Astbury Biostructure Lab (University of Leeds) is partnering with eBIC (Diamond light source) Scottish Centre for Macromolecular Imaging (University of Glasgow), Midlands Regional Cryo-EM Facility (University of Leicester) and Birkbeck college (University of London) to host training courses between 2021-2026 in cryo-EM. This training program would not be possible without these partners, and is funded by Wellcome and MRC (218785/Z/19/Z).

Further information can be found here.

Courses and workshops for the program can be found below:

Latest Course Pages

The Cryo Electron Tomography in Structural Biology workshop is a 4-day online workshop for active researchers with fundamental lectures and practicals in cryo-ET. Lectures provide theory and exemplification of scientific applications of tomography for structural biology. Practical and demonstration sessions provide an opportunity for participants to gain experience in instrument operation and analysis workflows. In particular for cryo-ET of different sample types, FIB-SEM and also sub-tomogram averaging.

Latest Course Page

The Wellcome Trust Oxford DTP course: Cryo Electron Microscopy in Structural Biology is a 4-day course for students, with fundamental lectures and practical demonstration in cryo-EM and cryo-ET - from the electron microscope & sample preparation, through to image formation & processing, reconstruction in SPA and cryo-ET, and model building.

Latest Course Page

eBIC & Instruct-ERIC deliver a training course for single particle analysis entitled 'Fully remote data collection on eBIC cryo-EM instruments’. This course introduces and demonstrates our preferred tools for discussing experiments and keeping contact, IspyB mediated sample shipping, EPU concepts/setup and Synchweb/IspyB mediated on-the-fly data processing.

This course is funded by Instruct-ERIC and delivers training to 4 cohorts. Each cohort of approximately 2 people is scheduled two 8hr Talos sessions followed by one 8hr Krios session.

Latest Course Page

The major bottleneck for the majority of new users is a lack of knowledge in sample preparation and optimisation for cryo-EM.

To address this need within the cryo-EM community, eBIC run workshops to introduce new users to relevant techniques and equipment related to cryo-EM sample preparation, and to advance the knowledge and skills of scientists relatively new to the field.

eBIC will be holding cryo-EM sample preparation courses in the near future, and these workshops will be aimed at both new users (with no experience of cryo-EM) and those with some cryo-EM experience (requiring more in-depth training). 

Courses typically include:

• Plunge freezing with Vitrobot, Leica GP2 & Chameleon
• Clipping and loading Autogrids
• Grid screening via EPU
• Sample preparation methods for cryo-EM
• Lectures on:
  How the latest Electron Microscope's work
  Single particle analysis
  Tomography and lamella preparation using a cryo-FIB-SEM

Latest Course Page

Focused workshops are offered on specific software packages developed both in-house (CCP-EM), and beyond. Workshops are typically 2-3 day's in duration, covering specific areas in data analysis and model refinement. They support training, dissemination and the development of new methods.

Examples include:

• Biological Cryo Imaging (BCI) annual user meeting
• CCP-EM annual Spring Symposium [100+ participants]
• CCP-EM annual Icknield Model Building
• And more...