The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) is leveraging advanced cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) capabilities and expertise cultivated in-house to develop next-generation prevention and therapeutic medical countermeasures to protect the health of U.S. service members and ensure Force Readiness and Resiliency.
Cryo-EM capabilities, housed within the structural biology section of WRAIR’s Viral Diseases Program, involve flash-freezing fragile biological samples to enable imaging in a transmission electron microscope. This allows biological samples less than 0.5 micron in diameter to be preserved and imaged. The results are three-dimensional views of biological molecules at near-atomic resolution, revealing how antibodies bind to viruses, how vaccines assemble and how the immune response takes shape. These insights are transforming how military medical researchers design and refine new products.
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