The “Molecular Biophysics” facility (french acronym: Plate Forme de Biophysique MoleculaIre, PFBMI) federates an ensemble of state-of-the-art instrumentation for the in vitro molecular-scale characterization of biological macromolecules, together with well established technical and methodological expertise
What do we do ? The mission of the PFBMI is to provide an added value to a great variety of biological projects, enabling the characterization of the intrinsic properties of macromolecules and their assemblies (size, shape, folding, stability auto-association,…) and of the interactions in which they are involved (stoichiometry, thermodynamic and kinetic parameters, …). PFBMI equipments are available for the entire scientific community, in France and abroad, but a priority is given to teams from Institut Pasteur and the Institut Pasteur International Network.
Personalized training is available on PFBMI equipment to allow users to carry out experiments in autonomous mode.
Pricing : services are charged according to the following downloadable chart
Steering committee: Jean-Baptiste CHARBONNIER (CEA Saclay), Alexandre CHENAL (Institut Pasteur), Katherine STOTT (University of Cambridge), Nicolas WOLFF (Institut Pasteur) The PFBMI follows the best practice guidelines of C2RT
To submit a project to the PFBMI : For more information on the Quality Control service, please send an email to qcprotein@pasteur.fr. You can download and attach a QC submission form.
For all other PFBMI services, please send an e-mail to biophysique@pasteur.fr together with a completed project and training submission form.
Fields of expertise of the PFBMI :
- Size and shape of macromolecules and their assemblies
- Stoichiometry of macromolecular assemblies
- Secondary and tertiary structures of macromolecules
- Thermodynamic stability of macromolecules
- Characterisation of molecular interactions
- Quality control (QC) of purified proteins
Technologies available at the PFBMI :
- Analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC) XL-I and Optima AUC
- Circular dichroism (CD)
- Dynamic light scattering (DLS) cuvette or plate reader
- Fluorescence spectroscopy (steady state or stopped flow)
- Isothermal Microcalorimetry (ITC)
- Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)
- Microscale Thermophoresis (MST) LabelFree or NT115
- Mass Photometry (Refeyn TwoMP)
- Real-time biosensing: surface plasmon resonance (SPR: Biacore T200 and biolayer interferometry (BLI: Octet Red 384)
- Static multi-angle light scattering (SLS, MALS)
- Taylor dispersion and viscometry
- Differential Scanning Fluorimetry (NanoDSF)
The PFBMI also provides privileged access to instrumentation installed in other Institut Pasteur research units or in the Synchrotron SOLEIL:
- Electrophoretic mobility
- Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR)
- Small-Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS): SOLEIL SWING beamline
In 2008, the PFBMI obtained the IBISA label recognizing it as a French National core facility.
Since 2021, the PFBMI also coordinates the European Horizon 2020 funded project MOSBRI (MOlecular-Scale Biophysics Research Infrastructure), which brings together 13 academic and 2 industrial partners from 11 European countries. MOSBRI provides cutting-edge trans-national access to instrumentation and expertise, carries out ambitious joint research activities and organizes enticing networking activities, such as conferences, training schools and benchmarking actions.
The PFBMI is ISO 9001 certified.
To find out more, see the Technology Department brochure here.
