Cryo-electron microscopy core facility at CEITEC MUNI has finished installation of a new focused ion beam scanning electron microscope (FIB/SEM). BioHydra (ThermoScientific, Helios Hydra V) is equipped with an immersion SEM optics for high-resolution SEM imaging under room-temperature and cryogenic conditions and FIB working on the principle of inductively-couple plasma with a four gas (Xe,Ar,O,N) source for efficient material ablation. The instrument was proven to deliver 3D reconstruction of whole eukaryotic cells or parts of a tissue preserved at near-native state at resolution better than 30nm. Thus, BioHydra will provide the CIISB user community access to the cryo-volume imaging technology which is rapidly developing over the last few years and extend the capacity of cellular lamellae preparation for in situ structural biology studies by cryo-electron tomography. The installation of BioHydra microscope was made possible through the "Innovation of Czech Infrastructure for Integrative Structural Biology" grant, funded by the OP JAK for Research Infrastructures I.
