CLOSE UP AND ATOM

A gargantuan breakthrough in the world of the very small, June 2020 saw the development of technology that can picture individual atoms for the first time. Using a technique known as cryo-electron microscopy, scientists at the Max Plank Institute for Biophysical Chemistry fired electrons at frozen protein samples to picture structures 1.2-ångström (one ten-billionth of a metre) in size.

“It’s really a milestone… There’s really nothing to break anymore. This was the last resolution barrier,” said Holger Stark, one of the project’s researchers.

The imaging technique wasn’t only created to boost scientists’ Instagram profiles, though. Advances in cryo -electron microscopy will help experts learn how proteins work, providing insights that could lead to better disease-beating drugs with fewer side effects.