Electron Microscopy

General Policies

In order to gain access to the EM facility and its instruments, investigators must meet with the director of the facility and, in case training is required, be trained by the staff only.

Use of the facility is allowed after hours and at the weekend. In case of emergency, telephone numbers, including home phone and cell phone numbers of the director, are posted at various locations around the lab.

Instruments and chemicals cannot be removed from the lab at any time. Liquid nitrogen in the lab should only be used for electron microscopy applications.

Users of the facility should not store samples, solutions, or other materials (grids, blocks, etc) within the facility unless authorized by staff, and if so only in designated areas. Any sample or solution left unlabeled will be discarded.

Lack of respect towards the other users of the facility and the staff could result in access to the facility being revoked.

Safety

The staff will be happy to provide users of the facility with instructions on how to handle chemicals and instruments in a safe manner. Most procedures in electron microscopy require the use of uranyl acetate. Users who will be exposed to uranyl acetate solutions need to register for a class in radiation safety before being allowed to start their work in the lab.

Apart from uranyl acetate, no radioactive material is allowed within the EM facility. Users need to inform the staff before attempting to submit samples that contain radioisotopes.

All samples that are delivered to the EM facility need to be previously fixed with either
paraformaldehyde or glutaraldehyde, so as to ensure that any pathogens they might contain have been inactivated.

Spills of chemicals need to be cleaned immediately. In particular, users should take great care in cleaning any contamination of epoxy resin on bench space and instruments before it has time to polymerize.

Reservations

Reservation of instruments is possible either through sign-up sheets located near the instruments or using the online scheduling system. There electron microscopes. The Tecnai 12 TEM can only be reserved by slots of 2 hours each, and no more than 2 slots in advance.

Users are asked not to reserve more time on instruments than needed. Cancellations of a slot on an instrument should be done as early as possible, and definitely before the slot is supposed to have started. A slot that has not been cancelled on time will be billed as if it has been used.

Your time slot on the TEM includes the time it will take to change film. Film should be changed at least 15 minutes before the end of your slot to ensure that the microscope is ready for the next user.

Training

Training in various techniques of electron microscopy is provided for free to investigators who plan to use our facility on a regular basis. When they apply for training, investigators will be asked to describe a current or future project that requires EM, so as to enable the staff of the facility to assess the genuine nature of the request. Training should be performed by the staff of the facility only, unless special authorization is granted.

Computers

Users are not allowed to download or install software on any of the computers within the facility. These computers should be used for the sole purpose of imaging samples at the microscope, scanning negatives and printing images on the Fujix printer. Users are asked to immediately transfer their files to CD or other storage mediums, and delete their files from the hard disks. These hard disks will be cleaned up by the staff on a regular basis and files deleted without additional warning.

The computer operating the Tecnai TEM should at no time be used to browse the internet and read/write emails.

Billing of immuno-EM projects

Fees for immuno-EM projects are applied regardless of the results of the immuno-gold labeling. It is the responsibility of the user to ensure that antibodies have been tested by immunofluorescence before submitting them to the EM facility. Even if an antibody works at the immunofluorescence level, it is not guaranteed that it will work efficiently at the EM level.