Diamond Light Source Purchases Multiple Electron Microscopes From FEI
June 17 2014 - 8:30AM
FEI (Nasdaq:FEIC) today announced its largest order for Life
Sciences -- Diamond Light Source, one of the most advanced
synchrotron light sources in the world, has ordered two Titan
Krios™ cryo transmission electron microscopes (TEMs), a Scios™
DualBeam™ FIB/SEM (focused ion beam/scanning electron microscope)
and a Talos™ cryo-TEM. These microscopes form the core of the
electron biology facility (EBIC) that will provide Diamond with a
complete cryo-electron microscopy (EM) workflow that will be used
in conjunction with other structural biology techniques to enable
new insights into viruses and cellular proteins.
Professor David Stuart, director for Life Sciences at Diamond
Light Source, states, "X-ray diffraction (XRD) and nuclear magnetic
resonance (NMR) are extremely powerful techniques that can resolve
atomic-scale structure, but can only be applied to a subset of
biological molecules and complexes. Cryo-EM can resolve structures
down to the sub-nanometer, molecular-scale, and can look at just
about anything, including large multimolecular complexes. In the
simplest sense, integrative structural biology uses cryo-EM to
provide the overview, and XRD and NMR to see the details." He adds,
"Locating cryo-EM equipment at the synchrotron gives researchers
access to a range of advanced capabilities at the same facility.
The new Cryo EM centre for biology is being funded by a £15.6
million grant from the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council
(MRC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research
Council (BBSRC)."
"When the new Cryo-EM centre opens in 2015, the UK's national
synchrotron will house the essential tools needed to carry out a
comprehensive and integrated structural biology approach for
characterization of viruses and protein complexes," states Dr. Paul
Scagnetti, vice president of FEI's Science Business Group. "Answers
to many of the most important biological questions, from basic
biological functions to complicated disease processes, can
potentially be discovered by understanding the structure and
function of the molecular machines that operate in this spatial
regime."
Integrative structural biology is a rapidly-emerging field that
combines general methods including TEM. For this process Diamond's
sophisticated computational capabilities are critical for analyzing
the data from individual techniques and combining these results to
obtain 3D structural analysis that spans the spatial scale from
atoms to large multimolecular entities.
One of the Krios instruments will be dedicated to single
particle analysis (SPA), which can resolve structural details down
to a few tenths of a nanometer -- small enough to identify
individual side chains on the amino acid building blocks of
proteins. The other Krios cryo-TEM will be optimized for cellular
tomography, which can look at naturally-occurring configurations of
molecules in selected regions of whole cells. The Scios DualBeam
and Talos cryo-TEM will be part of the sample preparation
workflow.
Scagnetti adds, "Diamond Light Source combines an advanced
synchrotron with broad and deep technical expertise. Professor
David Stuart, who played a leading role in the cryo EM acquisition,
is one of the best-known experts in the field of XRD and structural
biology. We are delighted to be working with him and to see the
fast growing acceptance of cryo-EM into the discipline of
integrative structural biology."
The instruments will be located at Diamond Light Source on the
Harwell Science and Innovation Campus near Oxford, United Kingdom.
Diamond, a third-generation synchrotron light source, generates
high-intensity beams at frequencies that range from microwaves to
hard X-rays, providing opportunities for scientific research in a
number of disciplines.
The systems will be installed in Q1 2015. For more information
about FEI's microscopes for structural biology, please visit
http://www.fei.com/life-sciences/structural-biology/.
About Diamond Light Source
Diamond Light Source is the UK's national synchrotron science
facility, located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in
Oxfordshire. The facility is used by over 3,000 academic and
industrial researchers across a wide range of disciplines including
structural biology, energy, engineering, nanoscience and
environmental sciences. For more information, please visit:
www.diamond.ac.uk
About FEI
FEI Company (Nasdaq:FEIC) designs, manufactures and supports a
broad range of high-performance microscopy workflow solutions that
provide images and answers at the micro-, nano- and picometer
scales. Its innovation and leadership enable customers in industry
and science to increase productivity and make breakthrough
discoveries. Headquartered in Hillsboro, Ore., USA, FEI has over
2,600 employees and sales and service operations in more than 50
countries around the world. More information can be found at:
www.fei.com.
FEI Safe Harbor Statement
This news release contains forward-looking statements that
include statements regarding the performance capabilities and
benefits of the Titan Krios TEM, Scios DualBeam and Talos cryo-TEM
and the cryo-EM workflow. Factors that could affect these
forward-looking statements include but are not limited to our
ability to manufacture, ship, deliver and install the tools or
software as expected; failure of the product or technology to
perform as expected; unexpected technology problems and challenges;
changes to the technology; the inability of FEI, its suppliers or
project partners to make the technological advances required for
the technology to achieve anticipated results; and the inability of
the customer to deploy the tools or develop and deploy the expected
new applications or workflows. Please also refer to our Form 10-K,
Forms 10-Q, Forms 8-K and other filings with the U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission for additional information on these factors
and other factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from the forward-looking statements. FEI assumes no duty
to update forward-looking statements.
CONTACT: For more information contact:
Sandy Fewkes (media contact)
MindWrite Communications, Inc.
+1 408 224 4024
sandy@mind-write.com
FEI Company
Fletcher Chamberlin (investors and analysts)
Investor Relations
+1 503 726 7710
fletcher.chamberlin@fei.com
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