About

SCSC is located on the SLAC campus of Stanford University. The equipment, laboratories, and user work areas are located in Buildings 6 and 57. SCSC is one of several structural biology centers within SSRL/SLAC: SCSC is closely affiliated with the Stanford-SLAC CryoEM Center (S2C2) - the NIH-funded Center for cryoEM single-particle data collection and training, and with the synchrotron x-ray based Structural Molecular Biology Resource.

SCSC CryoET Facilities

Equipment (when fully built out):

Several cryoEM specimen preparative devices, cryo-fluorescence optical microscopes, cryo-focused ion beam scanning electron microscopes, and 200/300 kV electron cryo-microscopes equipped with direct electron detectors, energy filters, and phase plates. (see photos of available instruments). SCSC users will have access to these instruments after proper training. We anticipate the acquisition of new instrumentation for cryo-specimen preparation dedicated primarily to SCSC users. 

• Plunge Freezing Instruments including Leica GP, Thermo Fisher Vitrobot, and Gatan CP3 plunger in a low humidity laboratory.
• Cryo Fluorescent Light Microscopy (cryoFLM) includes an Airyscan LSM800 and Nikon Eclipse 80i both equipped with Linkam cryostages, also in a low humidity laboratory.
• Cryo Focused Ion Beam and Scanning Electron Microscopes (CryoFIB-SEM) including Thermo Fisher Aquilos (to be upgraded to Aquilos 2 in 2021), Zeiss Crossbeam, Aquilos 2 (installation in the fall of 2021).
• High-Pressure Freezer Leica ICE is available in a Stanford Medical School Core lab.
• Cryo-Sectioning Ultramicrotome Leica UC6 equipped with a cryo chamber.
• CryoEM Titan Krios and Talos Arctica electron microscopes are both equipped with Volta phase plate, BioQuantum energy filter, and K3 camera.

Biological Laboratory Facilities:

SCSC has a tissue culture laboratory, cold room, and standard biochemistry laboratories and equipment available for on-site users. These facilities are BSL-2 compliant.

Data Management and Computational Resources:

All experimental data collected under SCSC will be held on disk for two months from the day of collection. The data is transferred as soon as it is collected and is therefore immediately available for download via either the usual unix tools (RSYNC, SCP, BBCP, etc.) or through Globus. More details regarding data transfer can be found at https://confluence.slac.stanford.edu/x/mYoYDg.

After two months, the data is then moved onto tape and will be kept for 22 additional months. Requests for data retrieval after the data is moved onto tape can be made via email to unix-admin@slac.stanford.edu with specific information regarding the date of the data collection, the proposal number, and the microscope that was used.

Two years after the data is collected, the data will be purged completely from our systems.