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.
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 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.