Research conducted by Dr. Elitza Tocheva during her post-doctoral fellowship is included in the new Atlas of Bacterial & Archaeal Cell Structure, an innovative open-access microbiology textbook.
Authored by her supervisor, Professor of Biophysics and Biology Grant Jensen and Research Scientist Catherine Oikonomou, the Atlas offers a visual story of the microbial cell, using real 3D imaging data to showcase the complex structures that make these cells tick.
Published by the California Institute of Technology Library, the Atlas draws on the specialized expertise of the Jensen Lab at Caltech in state-of-the-art 3D cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM). Over the last 15 years, this technique has allowed researchers to peer inside the tiny cells of bacteria and archaea, revealing rich and unimagined interior structures. The Atlas of Bacterial & Archaeal Cell Structure opens these structures up to readers in an interactive, multimedia textbook that uses more than 150 movies of nearly 70 different species to illustrate the architectural features that enable cells to survive and thrive.
The content is geared toward undergraduates, with further depth offered through optional links to additional content. The main content can be digested in several hours, making the textbook a perfect complement to a cell biology or microbiology course, providing structural context for the biochemistry or human health aspects being covered.
The Atlas of Bacterial & Archaeal Cell Structure is available for free online, at https://cellstructureatlas.org