What Will Computational Modeling Approaches Have to Say in the Era of Atomistic Cryo-EM Data?

Conventional electron microscopy (EM) involves dehydration, fixation, and staining of biological samples, which distorts the native state of biological molecules and results in several artifacts. Also, the high-energy electron beam damages the sample and makes it difficult to obtain high-resolution images. These issues can be addressed using cryo-EM, which uses frozen samples and gentler electron beams. The technique was developed by Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank, and Richard Henderson, for...

Physical models representing molecular architectures of chemical compounds play essential roles in understanding chemistry. The use of molecular models makes it easier to visualize the structures and shapes of atoms and molecules.