Not my submission, but I am a cryo-electron microscopist if anyone has any questions about what's in the article, or more general. (and have worked with some of the people in the article).<p>I will comment that the major expensive most facilities face is the cost of the service contracts, which are partially parts, but also partially the need to pay multiple talented service engineers to be available to fly in on a moment's notice, and troubleshoot and fix the microscopes. Electron microscopes break constantly, and most users are not skilled enough to even troubleshoot, let alone fix them.<p>I will also point out that this part of the article:<p>>Levels of 100 kiloelectronvolts (KeV)—one-third as high—suffice to reveal molecular structure, and they reduce costs by eliminating the need for a regulated gas, sulfur hexafluoride, to snuff out sparks<p>Is wildly inaccurate. Relative to the cost of a microscope, SF6, and a high tension tank are absolutely pennies. Frankly, the cost savings are primarily in two areas:<p>1) The fact that Thermo Fisher isn't involved (the Tundra is a joke and a move for market monopolization)<p>2) Going from 300 kV (or even 200 kV) drastically reduces the needed tolerances for parts. 100 kV microscopes have been around forever, though, and almost none are going to the resolutions of 200 and 300 kV microscopes, although like Russo and Henderson, I agree that's a solvable problem. It's worth noting that the resolutions they are describing, while encouraging, are not great. 2.6 Å on Apoferritin, which is a best case scenario never seen in the "real-world" is quite a ways behind even the cheaper 200 kV scopes that have gotten down to 1.6 Å. This is still firmly in "screening and learning" territory for most flexible samples, which is not without value, but not the answer to the 5 million dollar Krios that we all so desperately want.<p>Re: the national centers in the article, it depends which one you go to. NCCAT is fantastic, in my experience, but S2C2 is in the costly bay area and they just can't afford to pay their staff scientists enough. So what happens if you get tossed in with a fresh PhD that is underpaid and uninterested in your project. I've seen, in general, a lack of caring by the staff there, and no desire to understand specific problems each user is trying to solve. That results in lots of wasted iterations, especially if you are starting from scratch with no experience.