The SOLARIS Centre and the Malopolska Centre of Biotechnology (Jagiellonian University) won a two-stage competition for the purchase of an electron microscopy for industrial research.
Funding was awarded by the National Information Processing Institute (OPI PIB) as part of the EU’s Smart Growth Operational Programme.
“We have been trying to purchase a microscope because Polish companies keep asking us about the possibility to carry out measurements using the Cryo-EM technique” – says Michał Młynarczyk, Finance and Administration Deputy Director at SOLARIS. “We expect that the total time allocated for the commercial study will be at least 40% of operational time. The remaining time will be available for academic researchers” – continues the director.
“We are keen to enable Polish companies to access this exciting new technology, which is developing very fast and is currently becoming the most important one used in structural biology. The achievable results facilitate to understand the cellular mechanisms behind human diseases, the design of new drugs, the optimization of existing drug molecules. The technique is also successfully applied in nanotechnology and other fields” – adds Sebastian Glatt, Max Planck Research Group leader at the Malopolska Centre of Biotechnology – the main partner of SOLARIS in the implementation of this project.