February Fourier Talks 2012

Electron tomography is a technique for determining 3D cellular ultrastructure at the nanometer scale from a series of projection images recorded in the transmission electron microscope by tilting a specimen through a range of angles. Although the basic principles of electron tomography have been known for decades, its use is now expanding rapidly due to dramatic improvements in instrumentation and processing methods, as well as the need to visualize extended biological structures. Here we discuss a range of imaging modes for acquiring data and a variety of approaches for determining 3D volumes, including iterative reconstruction techniques. Comparisons are made between electron tomography and slice-and-view technology for large-scale data sets.