Title: An Outlook of Dynamic Crystallography at a Future Synchrotron Facility for Structural Biology

Speaker: Dr. Ren Zhong from APS

Time: 14:30, April 8, 2013

Place: Meeting room in No.12 Hall

Moderator: Dr. Tao Ye

Abstract:

In this post genomics era, protein crystallography is gaining an extra dimension as it develops into dynamic crystallography. Along this dimension, a desired control parameter is varied to initiate a reaction, to stimulate a response, or to perturb a structure from its steady state. In the meanwhile, a sequence of ever-evolving structures is monitored to gain mechanistic insights into the working machinery of a protein. Dynamic crystallography in the foreseeable future under this forward-looking description is becoming increasingly feasible since some of the chief difficulties have been overcome; others are being worked on. A few recent examples have already strived to move in the right direction. I will present this vision for future structural biology facilities centered at a synchrotron source that would consist of a number of technical components to warrant the overall productivity. In addition to the X-ray source, these include computation and informatics, protein production and crystallization, micro and macrofluidics, laser and other pump light sources, timing and optical systems, cryo and room temperature robotics. I will present real examples to demonstrate the recently solved problems and discuss strategies to tackle the remaining ones. These approaches will also help to meet the challenges from X-ray free electron lasers.