Funding boost for unlocking the secrets of biological molecules

£1 million for new x-ray diffraction and NMR equipment<em> - News</em>

By Danielle Reeves
Monday 27 October 2008

Imperial's Centre for Structural Biology has received £1 million from the Wellcome Trust for new equipment which will allow researchers to look at the atomic detail of important biological molecules in facilities on the College's South Kensington campus.

Understanding the detailed structure of biological molecules such as proteins, which perform important functions inside human cells, and organisms that attack human cells, provides vital clues to how they work. Knowing how such molecules work gives scientists a better understanding of fundamental human biology, but also feeds into the search for new drugs and therapies to treat diseases.

Imperial's cross faculty NMR facility will benefit from the new funding

The new funds will be used to install a cutting-edge x-ray diffraction system which can be used to look at the structure of a molecule by bouncing high powered x-ray beams off large numbers of the same molecule organised in a crystalline pattern. This new equipment will benefit the work Imperial scientists who will now be able to look at many of their delicate crystallised molecules on campus, using the extremely powerful machine.

The new funding will also allow the Centre for Structural Biology to upgrade the sensitivity and performance of existing Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy equipment at the College.

NMR spectroscopy allows scientists to see the fine details of how molecules are made up, by placing a sample into the ultra-high magnetic field created by a powerful magnet. Atoms in the molecule interact with the magnetic field and can be stimulated to create an energy. Through observing and measuring this energy, researchers are able to determine the molecule's structure and how it interacts with other molecules.

Unlike X-ray analysis of molecular crystals, NMR also allows scientists to look at the dynamic properties of molecules as they move around in solution. Professor Steve Matthews from Imperial's Division of Molecular Biosciences, Director of the Centre for Structural Biology, explains that upgrading Imperial's capabilities in both these fields means College researchers get the best of both worlds:

"X-ray crystallography is superlative for capturing still 'snapshots' of a molecule’s structure," he says. "But if you want to supplement your understanding of a molecule's shape with information on how it changes when it moves and comes into contact with other molecules, then you need to use multidisciplinary methods combining X-ray crystallography and NMR.

"This new funding will provide researchers from across Imperial with access to state of the art equipment to perform both kinds of analyses here on campus."

The Centre for Structural Biology serves as a central hub for structural biology researchers from the Divisions of Molecular Biosciences and Cell & Molecular Biology in the Faculty of Natural Sciences, and Infectious Diseases and Biomolecular Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine.

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