SLAC Experts

Wah Chiu

Professor at SLAC and Stanford Director of CryoEM and Bioimaging Division at SLAC

Photo of Professor Wah Chui with a cryo-electron micrcoscope

Areas of research: Science of life; cryo-EM; bioimaging; RNA structure; cryo-ET of neuronal cells; atomic-resolution cryo-EM; pandemic-related structures

Determining the atomic details of biomolecular structures with cryo-EM helps us understand the cellular basis of human diseases – from neurodegeneration to virus infection and cancer – and it’s increasingly becoming part of the discovery process for drugs and therapeutics.”

Media contact Stanford profile

News Feature

Disabling those hinges could be a good strategy for designing vaccines and treatments against a broad range of coronavirus infections.

A 3D image of a round, spiky coronavirus with inset showing how far its spikes can bend.

SLAC Science Explained

Taking pictures of tiny, flash-frozen things with electrons is revolutionizing biology and technology. SLAC and Stanford host one of the world’s leading facilities for...

News Feature

SLAC and Stanford scientists used it to zoom in on an iconic RNA catalyst and a piece of viral RNA that’s a potential target...

A high-res 3D ribbon diagram showing the structure of part of an RNA molecule

News Feature

The study, done on a mild-mannered relative of the virus that causes COVID-19, paves the way for seeing more clearly how spike proteins initiate...

News Feature

No human cell can function without these tiny machines, which cause disease when they go haywire and offer potential targets for therapeutic drugs.

Illustration of molecular Ferris wheel moving protons

News Feature

They found that gently heating N95 masks in high relative humidity could inactivate SARS-CoV-2 virus trapped within the masks, without degrading the masks’ performance.