Research Group:
Synchrotron Structural Biology
Contact: |
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Genji Kurisu
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Inst. Prot. Res., Osaka Univ., 3-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka |
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Telephone: +81-6-6879-8604/ +81-6-6879-8606 |
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gkurisu(at)protein.osaka-u.ac.jp |
Overview of Research Group, Goals and Purposes:
@The understanding of biological function derived from
three-dimensional structures of key proteins and nucleic acids is
particularly important in biology and becomes essential for applied
biosciences, protein engineering or structure based drug design. Most
of the structure models deposited in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) are
determined by X-ray crystallography taking advantage of powerful
synchrotron sources. In addition, hybrid approaches to the structural
biology using techniques such as SAXS, IR, XAFS and Mössbauer
spectroscopy become now widespread for better understanding of
biological functions.
Even though we can now determine many protein structures very
rapidly, it is still difficult to to solve the crystal structures with
long unit cell parameters, small crystal size, poor diffraction quality
or severe radiation damage. Therefore, the structural biology beamlines
in synchrotrons provide a wide range of performance covering the
variety of samples with different properties. In SPring-8, there are
several characteristic beamlines individually optimized for specific
purpose. They are operated not only by JASRI, but also by RIKEN Harima
Institute and Osaka University. SPring-8 users of structural biology
also come from the various organizations; universities, national
institutes and private companies.
In order to utilize the SPring-8 structural biology beamlines
more effectively, a new national project has started from 2012. The
X-ray Free Electron Laser (SACLA) has come on line and is open for
public users. Now, the situation in structural biology is changing and
very exciting. The most important goal of our group is to further
develop synchrotron structural biology by supporting the connection
between the SPring-8 and the user community.
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