The Protein Research and Technology Center of Tsinghua University is not only a university-level scientific research condition platform, but also an important part of the country's major scientific facilities. While meeting the scientific research needs of Tsinghua University, it provides technical cooperation and open services for national educational research institutions and corporate research and development. At present, it has been built into the world's largest cryo-electron microscopy laboratory and structural biology research platform. The center has 10 sub-platforms. The director, executive deputy director, and deputy director of the center are responsible for platform development planning and daily management, and the technical director of each sub-platform is responsible for the daily operation and service support of the platform. The total number of personnel has reached 65.
At present, all instruments in the Protein Research Technology Center are open 24/7. Relying on the central facilities, Tsinghua University’s medical disciplines have opened multiple student courses such as "Bioelectron Microscopy Experimental Technology" and "Protein Crystallography Experiment". Published 19 research papers, supported more than 500 papers, supported more than 100 domestic and foreign scientific research projects, held more than 130 training technical lectures every year, and successfully solved the test and analysis problems of a series of complex samples at home and abroad. Academician Shi Yigong’s research group successively published 10 research articles on the three-dimensional structure and mechanism of the spliceosome in Science and Cell, providing the clearest and most comprehensive structural information for understanding the molecular mechanism of RNA splicing. During the outbreak of the new crown virus, the platform provided key support for the various research work carried out by Tsinghua University on the new crown virus, and supported the research team of Professor Wang Xinquan and Professor Zhang Linqi to analyze the crystal structure of the new coronavirus protein complex in order to understand the virus and the receptor. The interaction played a key role. Since its establishment in 2013, the center has won 50 Tsinghua University large-scale equipment use benefit awards. The cryo-electron microscopy platform won the honorary title of "Excellent Technology Platform" by the National Protein Science Center in 2019.
In the process of providing high-quality services to users, the technical backbone of the center actively develops instruments and equipment using new technologies and new methods, and has achieved several technological innovations, such as the determination of peptides less than 1kD and their low-proportion oligomers, which strengthened the stability of test data. The performance and accuracy of the equipment have expanded the detection range of the equipment and increased the types of detection objects; the cryo-electron microscope equipment has upgraded the electronic detection camera K3, and the data collection efficiency has been doubled.
The Protein Research Technology Center has established a world-leading cryo-electron microscopy laboratory and protein scientific research platform.
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