http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/top-stories-push-build-affordable-electron-microscopes-coronavirus-not-global-emergency

‘We need a people’s cryo-EM.’ Scientists hope to bring revolutionary microscope to the masses

Scientists hope that cryo–electron microscopy (cryo-EM), an expensive technique that allows scientists to study proteins at high resolution, gets more affordable soon. Today, a top microscope costs about $7 million, and long waits to use these machines hinder biomedical research. In his lab at the Laboratory for Molecular Biology in the United Kingdom, molecular biologist Richard Henderson and his colleagues have developed a cheaper microscope that could bring the technology to more laboratories around the globe. Building these more affordable machines would democratize the field, he says.