Poster Presentation The 35th Biennial Conference of the Society of Crystallographers in Australia and New Zealand 2024 (Crystal 35)

Development of 3DED/MicroED facility at the University of Queensland (#100)

Kasun S Athukorala Arachchige 1 , Naama Koifman 1 , Weixi Gu 2 , Matthias Floetenmeyer 1 , Hongyi Xu 3 , Bostjan Kobe 2 , Roger Wepf 1
  1. Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis , The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia
  2. School of Chemistry & Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia
  3. Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

Micro-Crystal Electron Diffraction (MicroED) has generated significant excitement in the scientific community as an emerging crystallography method for determining the 3-dimensional atomic structure of nanocrystals. These nanocrystals are often too small for conventional X-ray diffraction and too complex for powder X-ray diffraction. Our team of expert microscopists and crystallographers at the University of Queensland, in collaboration with MicroED expert Dr. Hongyi Xu from Stockholm University, has been at the forefront of this rapidly advancing field.

In 2022, the CMM team successfully collected UQ’s first-ever MicroED datasets of small molecules and macromolecules using an older cryo-transmission electron microscope, the Tecnai F30, equipped with a cryo-transfer holder and a OneView Gatan Camera. Our success in securing the ARC LIEF grant in 2023 has enabled us to establish Australia's first dedicated micro-crystal electron diffraction facility at the University of Queensland. The new Thermo Fisher Glacios 2 dedicated MicroED TEM was installed in May 2024. This facility will fill an essential gap in the existing crystallography workflows in South-East Queensland and be made accessible to other Australian researchers.

In this presentation, I will showcase our workflow from sample preparation to data collection for nano/micro crystals, including several examples of pharmaceuticals and macromolecules analysed from data collected on a 300 kV Tecnai microscope and Glacios 2, highlighting the capabilities and advancements of our new 3DED/MicroED facility.

  1. Dan, S., Brent, L. N., Matthew, G. I. & Gonen, T. (2013). eLife 2:e01345
  2. Gemmi, M., Mugnaioli, E., Gorelik, T. E., Kolb, U., Palatinus, L., Boullay, P., Hovmöller, S. & Abrahams, J.P. (2019). ACS Cent Sci. 5(8):1315-1329.