2017 - Nobel Prize in chemistry- Cryo-Electron Microscopy

TNPSC Current Affairs - October 2017 by TNPSC Guru

For 2017 Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson for developing “cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution”

About the discovery:

• The Three laureates have developed a technique that take accurate and high resolution, 3D images of proteins, nucleic acids and other biomolecules and how biomolecules move and interact as they perform their functions
• It helps Scientist to see the complex structures of biomolecules, that helps to develop new drugs and medical treatment because understanding the biomolecules is fundamental to biochemistry.
• Recently cryo-electron microscopy is even helped scientist to image the Zika Virus

About the Cryo-Electron Microscopy and its advantages. 

• In Traditional Transmission electron Microscopes (TEMs) uses beam of electron passes through the molecules to examine the structure of molecules.
• But particularly biomolecules are not compatible with the intense electron beams.
• The water surrounds in the molecules get evaporated and get damaged when the high intense electron beams passes using traditional TEMs.
• So to overcome these difficulties, Cyro-Electron Microscopy has been developed. It uses frozen samples, gentler electron beams to get the images.
• Question may arise that we can use X-ray diffraction to get high resolution structures of biomolecules. But to get the x-ray structure, we need to crystallise the molecule, but many molecules won’t crystallise and also it sometimes alters the structure. Cryo-Electron Micrscopy doesn’t require molecules to crystallise.