First annual report: Executive Summary, Months 1-12
A complete three-dimensional (3D) visualisation of the cell at molecular resolution is one of the ambitious goals of biomedical sciences. The detailed information now available on individual cellular components as well as some of their interactions has been derived by using biochemical methods including crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and electron microscopy (EM). To obtain this knowledge, cells have been disassembled into supramolecular substructures and individual building blocks such as genes and proteins. However, dynamic nodes of interacting proteins fulfilling their biological functions can only be discovered and studied in the cellular context. To acquire 3D images of an entire cell at sufficient resolution to visualize the detailed structure of such nodes, EM is currently the only method available. It provides nanometer scale structural information on such native complexes, which can then be used to integrate the atomic scale structural information on cellular components obtained from crystallography or NMR into an atomistic model of the cell.