The microscope is expected to stand 16 feet high and weigh 1.7 tons. The FSU scientists will share this innovative tool once required renovations to the building in which it will be housed are completed in 2009.

"This instrument will be cutting-edge in several ways," said biological science Professor Kenneth Taylor, the principal investigator on FSU's award-winning grant application. "Not only is it robotic, collecting data continually without operation attention, in fact it can only be operated remotely," Taylor said. "There's no conventional 'binocular' for the user to view the image. What's more, the microscope can be operated and the images viewed by anyone in the U.S. with high-speed Internet capability and the required, specially designed workstation."

"When it is installed next year, our new-generation cryo-electron microscope will complement the sophisticated imaging components FSU already has in place at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and in labs on its main campus, and should attract an enormous amount of attention from the rest of the country," said FSU Vice President for Research Kirby Kemper. "As a result, we expect to draw even more of the nation's best students to Florida State for some of the world's best science research opportunities."
Adapted from a press release from FSU http://www.fsu.edu/news/2008/07/16/hei.grant/

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