diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 3aa73f5ed6..a31644435c 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ dependencies = [
     # finufft 2.2.0 doesn't seemt to run on GHA Windows CI...    
     "finufft==2.2.0 ; sys_platform != 'win32'",
     "finufft==2.1.0 ; sys_platform == 'win32'",
-    "gemmi >= 0.4.8",
+    "gemmi >= 0.6.5",
     "grpcio >= 1.54.2",
     "joblib",
     "matplotlib >= 3.2.0",
diff --git a/src/aspire/storage/starfile.py b/src/aspire/storage/starfile.py
index 19598c1e06..98b3219607 100644
--- a/src/aspire/storage/starfile.py
+++ b/src/aspire/storage/starfile.py
@@ -100,11 +100,10 @@ def _initialize_blocks(self):
                         )
                     loop_tags = gemmi_item.loop.tags
                     # convert loop data to a list of lists
-                    # using the .val(row, col) method of gemmi's Loop class
                     loop_data = [None] * gemmi_item.loop.length()
                     for row in range(gemmi_item.loop.length()):
                         loop_data[row] = [
-                            gemmi_item.loop.val(row, col)
+                            gemmi_item.loop[row, col]
                             for col in range(gemmi_item.loop.width())
                         ]
             if block_has_pair: