Science Highlights

Words to Live and Die by

For anyone writing grants this analysis by Rands ought to ring true. It is geared towards the business world, but clearly has relevance to the scientific sphere.

Structure and Flexibility Within Proteins as Identified Through SAXS

In a recent article in the General Physiology and Biophysics we describe an analysis tool using relatively inexpensive small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) measurements to identify protein flexibility and validate a constructed minimal ensemble of models, which represent highly populated conformations in solution. The resolution of these results is sufficient to address the questions being…
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Flipping of Alkylated DNA Damage Bridges Base and Nucleotide Excision Repair

Julie Tubbs from John Tainer’s group at Scripps published a totally sweet paper in the June 11, 2009 issue of Nature demonstrating that the ATL protein uses nucleotide flipping to link alkylated base damage to the nucleotide excision repair pathway. This publication was in part made possible by the SIBYLS beamline.  Abstract: Alkyltransferase-like proteins (ATLs) share…
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New Google-style Annotated Time Lines for Beamline Data

For older browsers, or non-flash enabled mobile browsers, we offer the old skool status page which has convenient small png files showing the last 24 hours of beamline data, but if you want to have a hands-on experience you might want to try out our new Google-style annotated time lines. If you’re familiar with the Google finance…
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XPD Structure Provides Insights Into Cancer and Aging

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 “The Crumbling Ivory Tower”

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.”

A beginner’s Guide to Radiation Damage

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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SIBYLS Beamline Awarded 50,000 Hours on the DOE’s NERSC Supercomputer Cluster to Analyze SAXS Data

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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