The structure of XPD was solved using data collected at the SIBYLS beamline and published in Cell this past summer. Recently this outstanding work was featured in the ALS Science Highlights. “XPD helicase is an enzyme that unwinds the DNA double helix; it is one component of an essential repair mechanism that maintains the integrity of…
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Stephen Quake on disclosure and peer review in scientific publications. Peer review is the bedrock value of the scientific community and although it certainly is not perfect, it is, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, “the worst system, except for all the others that have been tried.”
In the March 2009 Journal of Synchrotron Radiation special issue on radiation damage, in addition to authoring two papers, our illustrious James Holton’s ankle appears on the cover! The first paper deals with the practical aspects of controlling and understanding radiation damage and will be very interesting to crystallographers who would like to collect data more…
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The SIBYLS beamline has recently been awarded 50,000 hours on the NERSC (National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center) to perform solution structure modeling using experimental SAXS data. Besides the usual ab-initio reconstructions programs a new approach in rigid body modeling BILBOMD has been parallelized on the NERSC supercomputer. It is commonly acknowledged that flexibility between domains of…
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In a recent article in the Journal of Molecular Biology a paper has been published exploring the ability of prokaryotic thermophiles to supply stable human protein homologs for structural biology. The authors have made use of an unusual deep-sea hydrothermal-vent worm called Alvinella pompejana. This worm has been found in temperatures averaging as high as…
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