Every Modality Has Unique Structural Questions. Cryo-EM Provides the Answers.
Whether you're developing vaccines, gene therapies, or novel drug delivery systems, understanding the structure of your therapeutic at the molecular and particle level is critical to making development decisions with confidence. Our integrated protein production and cryo-EM services support structure-based drug design and nanoparticle characterization across all major therapeutic modalities.
With six microscopes on two coasts and over 20 years of cryo-EM experience, we provide high-quality data and seamless project execution no matter where you are.
Modality Overview
Vaccines
Cryo-TEM imaging of viral, liposomal, and protein subunit vaccine formulations can reveal aggregation, maturation and purity. For viral-based formulations, per-particle analysis classifies particles as densely decorated, sparsely decorated, or undecorated, helping optimize nanoparticle-based vaccine design.
Gene Delivery
For viral and lipid-based gene delivery vectors, cryo-TEM provides fully automated full/partial/empty capsid ratio analysis, aggregation assessment, and cargo encapsulation insights. Understanding the loaded/unloaded ratio is critical: empty nanocarriers cannot deliver therapeutic benefit and may increase unwanted immune responses.
Drug Delivery
Direct visualization of individual liposomes, micelles, and protein-based carriers such as albumin-bound nanoparticles in their near-native state reveals size distribution and payload encapsulation, with lamellarity and blebbing assessed for liposomal formulations. Cryo-TEM is the only technique that can directly visualize the presence of blebbing in liposomal formulations.
Additional Platforms
Cryo-TEM and negative stain TEM imaging support characterization of polymeric nanoparticles, inorganic systems, extracellular vesicles and exosomes, bacteriophages, and protein/peptide-based nanoparticles. From R&D through IND, method validation and regulatory filings, per-particle imaging complements your characterization toolkit at any stage of the pipeline.
The TrueCourse Difference
We are the most experienced nanoparticle characterization CRO, with 220+ AAV samples imaged, 3,700+ liposomal samples (including LNP, EV, and OMV projects), and 2,900+ virus and VLP samples imaged. Proprietary machine learning algorithms deliver quantitative insights that other methods miss, using only ~50μl of sample.
