One of our CLEXM PHD students, Jakub Krstev attended a workshop in the ALBA Synchrotron in Barcelona, Spain. Jakub reports on his experience from the workshop Day 2.

“Continuing on with our training in biological SXT grid based sample preparation, under the expert tutelage of Dr. Ana Joaquina Perez Berna, staining our grid mounted cells with DAPI and lyso tracker, followed by blotting with gold nanoparticles and plunge freezing, with sample integrity being subsequently validated without compromising vitrification by its mounting on a microscope cryostage.

Getting hands on experience in all of these steps utilized in the standard Mistral beamline workflow for biological samples will be invaluable for myslef in establishing similar workflows at University College Dublin and so I am incredibly grateful for ALBA to have aforded us this opportunity.

Additionally, two amazing talks were given by Dr. Ubaldo Iriso and Dr. Joaquin Oton Perez on the physics/engineering underpinning particle accelerators and tomography reconstruction algorithms respectively. The talks were marvelously informative and easilly digestible, despite my expertise being primarily in biology, a testament to not only the knowledge but also the outstanding communication skills of the speakers”. – Jakub Krstev.

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