Join the Iowa CryoEM Symposium + Workshop for a four-day event bringing together researchers, students, postdocs, and core facility users interested in the rapidly advancing field of cryo-electron microscopy.
The symposium kicks off with research talks from University of Iowa laboratories, a poster session, industry perspectives, and networking opportunities with leading scientists and experts in the field, including keynote speaker Cornelius Gati, PhD from USC. Attendees will gain insight into the growing CryoEM ecosystem at Iowa while exploring cutting-edge applications, technologies, and collaborative opportunities.
Beyond the symposium, participants will benefit from an immersive, hands-on workshop experience covering the complete CryoEM workflow, from sample preparation and vitrification through microscope operation, data collection, processing, model building, and refinement. Led in partnership with the Pacific Northwest CryoEM Center (PNCC), the training includes live demonstrations, small-group exercises, practical tutorials, and real-world workflow guidance using industry-standard tools such as CryoSPARC. Whether you are new to CryoEM or looking to strengthen your expertise, this event offers a unique opportunity to build skills, connect with experts, and learn how to accelerate your research using state-of-the-art CryoEM resources.
Interested in Structural Biology Research?
All are encouraged to attend on November 10 in Prem Sahai Auditorium (1110 MERF)
For Workshop Schedule and Sign-Up:
Email nicholas-schnicker@uiowa.edu.
Schedule of Events:
November 10, 10:00am - 5:00pm
Prem Sahai Auditorium (1110 MERF)
- 10:00 - Welcome & Opening Remarks
Dr. Ernesto Fuentes - 10:10 - Estabilsing CroyEM @ Iowa
Dr Nicholas Schnicker - 10:35 - From Screening to Structure, All on the Glacios
Dr. Natalie Young (ThermoFisher) - Iowa Research Talks
11:05 - Dr. Shiva Mandala
11:35 - Dr. Alex Miller
12:05 - Dr. Sandipan Chowdhury - 12:35 - 13:55 - Lunch Break
- 14:00 - Invited Keynote
Dr. Cornelius Gati (USC) - 15:00 - PNCC talk + workshop info
- 15:30 - Poster session in EMRB
- 17:00 - Facility Tour
More About Our Keynote Speaker:
Cornelius Gati is an Associate Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, Chemistry, and Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Southern California's Bridge Institute, and Technical Director of the Amgen-USC CryoEM Facility. His laboratory studies how membrane receptors and transporters transition between conformational states, and how ligands and signaling partners reshape those landscapes. Combining single-particle cryo-EM with and cellular pharmacology, his group has captured nucleotide release at the mu-opioid receptor, defined mechanisms of inverse agonism at the kappa-opioid receptor, revealed how complement anaphylatoxins activate their receptors, and determined the structural basis of GABA reuptake inhibition, with work published in Nature, Cell, and Nature Chemical Biology.
Gati received his Dr. rer. nat. summa cum laude from the University of Hamburg and DESY with Henry Chapman, where he received the DESY PhD Award. He was a Human Frontier Science Program Fellow with Sjors Scheres at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and a Panofsky Fellow at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University before joining USC in 2021. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Dr. Gati will speak at 2:00pm in the Prem Sahai Auditorium (1110 MERF) on November 10, 2026.
Keynote Speaker:
Cornelius Gati, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Quantitative and Computational Biology and Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences
"Mapping the conformational landscape of mu opioid receptors: from structure to pharmacology"
November 10, 2026
2:00pm
Prem Sahai Auditorium
(1110 MERF)