👥 Personal
Vitor Hugo Balasco Serrão, Ph.D.
Director & Facility Manager
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
University of California, Santa Cruz
Expertise:
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Single-particle cryo-EM and cryo-ET workflows
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Membrane proteins and viral glycoproteins
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Cryo-EM IT infrastructure and data management
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Facility design and operations​​
Dr. Serrão conceived, designed, and built the UCSC Biomolecular Cryo-EM Facility and leads its scientific, technical, and training programs. He also directs international collaborations enabling remote cryo-EM access and large-scale data processing pipelines.
Eric Shell
Cryo-EM Systems Administrator
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Responsibilities:
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GPU cluster deployment and optimization
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High-performance storage and data transfer
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Remote processing environments
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Workflow automation and software support
John Dzimianski, Ph.D.
Research Specialist
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
University of California, Santa Cruz
Expertise:
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Single-particle cryo-EM data processing
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Viral glycoproteins
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Model building and refinement
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Data validation and deposition
Faculty Scientific Partners
The facility supports a broad community of UCSC structural biologists across multiple departments, including research on:
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Ribosomes and RNA-protein complexes
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Viral glycoproteins and neutralizing antibodies
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Circadian clock assemblies
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Membrane protein complexes
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Cell-cycle regulators
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These collaborations span Chemistry & Biochemistry, MCD Biology, Biomolecular Engineering, and related programs
Alumni and incoming trainees
The UCSC Biomolecular Cryo-EM Facility is committed to training the next generation of structural biologists through hands-on, immersive programs in single-particle cryo-EM, cryo-ET, and data processing. Our trainees come from UCSC, national laboratories, and international institutions, reflecting the facility’s global reach and collaborative mission.
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Recent Alumni Trainees
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Dr. Peter Ngoi – UCSC / Amgen (USA)
4-week intensive training – Spring 2025
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Dr. Juliana Torini – Postdoctoral Fellow (Brazil)
2-week advanced training – June 2025
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Sumehra Ferdous – UCSC QB3 Intern (USA)
12-week summer internship – Summer 2025
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Mathias Bell – PhD Student, Queen’s University (Canada)
2-week training – December 2025
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Vitória Cabrera – PhD Student (Brazil)
6-month visiting researcher – January–July 2026
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UCSC QB3 Intern – To be selected (USA)
12-week summer internship – Summer 2026.
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Attendees of the UCSC Biomolecular cryoEM Workshop 2026-2028