ACCESS · Affordable Cryo-EM through Computational Enhancement of Structural Studies

Cryo-electron microscopy has transformed structural biology, enabling atomic-resolution protein structure determination without crystallization through imaging of flash-frozen specimens in vitreous ice. Despite the 2017 Nobel Prize recognition, current cryo-EM faces critical limitations: minimum protein size requirements (>50-100 kDa), sample homogeneity constraints, and prohibitive costs (€10M+ for 300 kV system and infrastructure from US/Japanese manufacturers). ACCESS radically reimagines this paradigm through 4D-STEM diffraction pattern acquisition at 30 kV, leveraging EBEAM's proven ptychographic reconstruction algorithms to achieve semi-atomic resolution of cryo-EM samples at 1/10th the cost.