Cryo-EM: a cold, hard look at biology

Jacque Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson have been awarded the 2017 Nobel prize in chemistry for their work in developing cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). But it’s been a long road. The laureates’ belief in cryo-EM’s potential, and their determination to overcome its challenges, laid the groundwork over decades to eventually deliver a method that now makes it easier than ever before to capture biological structures in atomic detail.