NeCEN microscopes show how a virus infects a cell
By creating a live connection with the microscope 70 m from its location, deputy Liesbeth Spies officially opened the Netherlands Centre for Electron Nanoscopy (NeCEN) on October 27th. NeCEN has two of the most advanced cryo-transmission electron microscopes for biological applications worldwide.
NeCEN microscope and dr. Sacha de Carlo as seen from the control room. Photo: Marc de Haan
Collaboration
The microscopes are 4m tall and can be controlled remotely. The centre is open to all research institutes and companies. Ten academic partners, local and national governments and companies collaborated to establish the centre. They expect that NeCEN will lead to giant steps forward in science and R&D.
Zooming in on life
All visitors could witness how the operator took an image of viruses by remote control. With the same technology, individual atoms have already been distinguished in a virus. As NeCEN has the best electron gun and detectors available, the microscopes are expected to show even more detail and give groundbreaking results. Visualizing these details is the first step towards understanding how diseases work and hence its potential cures. Examples are tuberculosis, malaria and cancer.
Attendees look at the screen to see viruses that are in the microscope. Front row left to right: drs. Willem te Beest, alderman Robert Strijk, Prof. mr. dr. Paul van der Heijden and Deputy Liesbeth Spies. Gijs van Duinen of FEI Company controls the microscope. Photo: Marc de Haan
Investing in science
Liesbeth Spies, deputy of economic affairs for the province of Zuid-Holland, valued the collaboration that led to setting up NeCEN in only three years. The microscopes cost 6 million euro each, but she mentioned that science is worth the investment by referring to a recent analysis by BiGGAR Economics. This survey shows that every euro invested in Leiden research generates four times its value for society. According to Liesbeth Spies, this is “a return that pension funds can only dream about”.
Open to public on Science Day
After the official opening, NECEN opened its doors to the public on the science day on October 30th. All those interested could catch a glimpse of (and inside!) the microscopes by joining a tour. Images and animations showed how you can reconstruct how a virus infects a cell from thousands of images. Among the images shown were those taken at the official opening three days earlier. Image of Phi-92 viruses, taken with a NeCEN microscope. The inset is taken at low electron dose and shows DNA packaging inside the heads as well as the tail structure and some fibers. Image by dr. Sacha de Carlo, FEI Company
How to set up a large research infrastructure?
NeCEN is the result of a unique collaboration between science, industry and politics. That is why all three aspects were addressed at a symposium on October 27th. Holger Stark, from the University of Göttingen provided insight in the wonderful world of electron microscopy during a guest lecture. After this, the participants explored the relation of NeCEN to science, industry and governments during three workshops. Chairs of these workshops were Bram Koster (LUMC), Peter Peters (NKI-AVL), Olivier Heyning (FEI company) and Jeanette Ridder-Numan (Ministry OCW). Over 110 people from science, governments and industry attended the afternoon program.
Open access
Although NeCEN is housed by the Cell Observatory in Leiden, all scientists at companies and research institutes can get access. Ten companies have already written a letter of intent to support the centre during the startup phase, including HAL Allergy, Genencor and Danone. Besides these letters of intent, 15 more companies have recognized the added value of NeCEN. It is truly unique that two microscopes of this type are located together and can be used by every academic or commercial scientist.
Source: www.nieuws.leidenuniv.nl
