Depending on the centre you wish to access, different possibilities, described below, are available to request access.
Irrespective of the centre chosen, please remember to acknowledge access to ‘France-Cryo-EM Facilities’ (see below).
National Centre for biomedical cryo-EM (CN-cryo, Strasbourg) IGBMC/CBI
Routes of access
The centre offers physical access and remote access to perform cryo electron microscopy (cryo-EM) single particle analysis (SPA) or cryo electron tomography (cryo-ET). Samples have to be been prescreened before to ensure optimized sample preparation (good particle distribution, concentration, no/little aggregation etc.) for cryo-EM (as evidenced by pictures of field of particles and initial class averages and 3D reconstructions) or in terms of cellular analysis (cell sections, SEM images from FIB milling etc.) for cryo-ET, to be provided upon submission of the access proposal.
Should you have specific questions regarding proposal submission, or need help with your proposal, please contact the Cryo-EM Team at IGBMC/CBI (Alexandre Durand duranda@igbmc.fr).
Two infrastructures are available:
FRISBI access
https://frisbi.eu/submit-a-proposal/ and select as platform “Cryo Electron Microscopy (Instruct centre – France1 – IGBMC”
Instruct-ERIC access
National and International access, including sample shipment and travel expenses, can be funded through Instruct-ERIC see https://instruct-eric.org/platform/electron-microscopy-strasbourg-france/
Industrial access
Contact us for a quote.
IBS/ESRF
Routes of access
The centre offers physical access and remote access. We encourage all users to contact the CM02 team before submitting a proposal.
National CRG access (up to two third of total beam time)
Proposal template can be downloaded here and send to cm02.contact@ibs.fr
ESRF access (one third of total beam time)
Applications to use CM01 and CM02 Krios microscopes are made through the ESRF User Portal (SMIS). The type of proposal is a structural biology rolling-access application, which can be submitted at any time during the year. Additionally, specific cryo-EM BAGs have been created (which are distinct from the MX-BAGs). Contact: cryo-em@esrf.fr
Cost
For accepted proposals, travel expenses will be reimbursed for a maximum of two visitors per experiment.
FRISBI access
https://frisbi.eu/submit-a-proposal/ and select as platform “Cryo Electron Microscopy (Instruct centre – France1 – IGBMC”
Instruct-ERIC access
International access, including sample shipment and travel expenses, can be funded through Instruct-ERIC, see https://instruct-eric.org/centre/instruct-centre—france-2/
Industrial access
Contact us for a quote.
Synchrotron SOLEIL
Routes of access
The centre offers physical access and remote access. Block allocation group (BAG) access calls are open in September and cover 12 months of access time starting from the February after project approval. BAG proposals are appropriate for regular access (1 – 2 days per month) throughout the year, and the number of members and projects within a BAG should take this into account. The mechanism for BAG access is described on https://www.synchrotron-soleil.fr/en/users/current-call-proposals/proposals-types-and-submission-guide.
For rapid access, a the rolling access procedure used to request time on the POLARIS microscope is described on the SOLEIL web site https://www.synchrotron-soleil.fr/en/users/current-call-proposals/proposals-types-and-submission-guide#Rolling-EN. Proposals can be submitted at any time via the SunSET (Soleil User Office Software, https://sun.synchrotron-soleil.fr/sunset/bridge/sunset/. After the user has logged in or created a new account, a proposal can be submitted by clicking on Proposal & Experiment Management, followed by CREATE a rolling proposal, as shown below.
The user is asked to write a short description of the experimental proposal, whether their request concerns Single Particle Analysis (SPA) cryo-EM or cryo electron tomography and estimate the amount of access time requested in 8-hour shifts. To help make this estimate, note that with the Falcon 4i camera and the electron beam displacement, POLARIS collects approximately 600 images per hour. Typically, users request 48 hours of access for SPA, and 72 hours for tomography applications. Details of the biological safety of samples must be given, with BSL 1 and, under specific circumstances, BSL2 samples accepted.
The peer review committee meets every 2 months (see dates on Rolling Access web page above), and, if the proposal is successful, access time is normally granted 1 – 2 months after application. The peer review committee judge the projects on scientific excellence and the need to collect high-resolution data on a particular sample. Screening of samples must have been performed prior to submission of the project, and evidence of the availability of suitable grids is requested as part of the proposal.
Data can be pre-analysed during the experiment with cryoSPARC Live, and data can be recovered either on external USB disk or via GLOBUS.
Currently only physical access (presence of user team) at SOLEIL is available, but remote access will be possible towards the middle of 2025.
Should you have specific questions regarding proposal submission, or need help with your proposal, please contact the Cryo-EM Team at SOLEIL (pierre.legrand@synchrotron-soleil.fr).
If you publish work supported by the EquipEx it is obligatory to include this sentence in the acknowledgement depending the centre you get access, as follow:
Strasbourg
This work used the Integrated Structural Biology platform of the Strasbourg Instruct-ERIC center IGBMC-CBI supported by FRISBI (ANR-10-INBS-0005) and EquipEx+ France cryo-EM (ANR-21-ESRE-0046)”.
Grenoble
“This work used the platforms of the Grenoble Instruct-ERIC center (ISBG, UAR 3518 CNRS-CEA-UGA-EMBL) within the Grenoble Partnership for Structural Biology (PSB), supported by FRISBI (ANR-10-INBS-0005) and EquipEx+ France-cryo-EM (ANR-21-ESRE-0046). We thank [local contact] for performing the experiments and providing local support on the CM02 ESRF CRG beamline.
For ESRF beamtime (MXiiii experiments) please add
We acknowledge the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility for provision of beam time on CM02 CRG beamline. “
Soleil
We acknowledge SOLEIL and the French EQUIPEX+ France Cryo-EM (ANR-21-ESRE-0046) for provision of cryo-EM facilities and we would like to thank “XXXXX” for assistance in using POLARIS microscope.
