Our lab is growing interest in incorporating cryo-EM in the study of mitochondrial replication and transcription, but unfortunately, we lack the expertise on structural biology needed for that purpose. The aim of this secondment was to learn about different cryoEM data processing software to be applied to the analysis of our own data.

Martin Hällberg is a collaborator of our lab and expert in cryoEM and structural biology. During this secondment we worked on data of one of our projects we had collected previously. I was able to get hands on different pieces of software such as Warp, cisTEM and Relion. This software is complex and its correct use can mean to obtain a good reconstruction from your dataset, meanwhile a bad processing will incur into bad results, even after getting the perfect cryo samples!

Unfortunately, the sample I got previously did not look good, meaning that we would need to do some refinement on the freezing conditions of the cryo grids or even choosing different strategies to optimize the contrast and results. Since that moment, I have dedicated to optimize those conditions from Gothenburg, and we are getting close to the ideal condition, from which I will be able to start working on the cryo structure of my protein. Nevertheless, the knowledge acquired during this secondment has already allowed me to independently process on data from other projects that has rendered good results so far! The basics of all these pieces of software has helped me to learn autonomously the work with cryosparc, another amazing piece of software. The more tools you know and control, the better you will be able to analyse your data!

I am very happy about the possibility of having learnt and of establishing a collaboration with Martin Hällberg as I think he is a brilliant scientist and hopefully after our fellowship I can have acquired good results and have provided my lab with structural biology expertise.