Seminars Archive

The structural biology laboratory @Elettra

Abstract
A new Structural Biology Laboratory has been established at Elettra in 2010 to provide state-of-the-art facilities to the in-house structural biology community, as well as other Elettra scientists or external users interested in biological research and its applications. I will briefly illustrate the facilities available in the lab and the current research projects, trying to avoid biological and medical "jargon". Structural biology is an interdisciplinary subject, requiring expertises from both the life sciences and the physical sciences. Our principal aim is to understand the 3D structure of proteins and to correlate the atomic structure to the chemical and biological function of the proteins. Proteins are large and complex macromolecules that work as "molecular machines" and carry out all the tasks that are necessary for the organism survival, ranging from building cellular structures, to catalysing all the chemical reactions within the cell, switching genes on and off, controlling intra- and inter-cellular communication, etc.. As with all "machines", the function of a protein critically depends on the 3D structure. We use protein crystallography to determine the atomic structure of these proteins, complemented by lower resolution techniques (SAXS and electron microscopy), as well as biochemical and biophysical approaches to understand how they work. Our research focus on the some of the basic mechanism within the cell with important consequences such as cell proliferation, chromosome instability, genetic diseases and the onset of cancer.