Webinar – Frank Bernhard’s Cell-Free Workflow for Cryo-EM–Ready Membrane Protein Complexes

Membrane proteins sit at the heart of signalling and transport, and many of the most valuable drug targets. But they’re also some of the hardest proteins to express, stabilise, and push all the way through to high-resolution structure and functional validation.

Join Dr Frank Bernhard (Goethe University Frankfurt), a world-leading expert in cell-free membrane protein expression, to explore a practical cell-free membrane protein expression workflow based on tuned E. coli lysates and tailored nanoparticle/lipid environments. You’ll see how nascent membrane proteins are inserted co-translationally into nanodiscs, how nanoparticle-based size exclusion (NSEC) is used as a rapid, general quality-control tool, and how this enables cryo-EM–grade GPCR/G protein complexes to be produced as full-length receptors, no truncations or fusion partners.

Dr Bernhard will also introduce a nanotransfer technique that moves cell-free synthesized GPCRs into living cell membranes, bridging in vitro structural insights with in vivo functional readouts. Whether you’re working on GPCR structural biology, transporters, channels, or other difficult membrane targets, this session will give you concrete strategies to shorten timelines from construct to structure and function.