Richard Gillilan
MacCHESS, Cornell University
Abstract:
Forty years ago this November Andre' Guinier published an overview of the previous 30 years of research in small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS). At the time, SAXS seemed a fully mature field with little prospect for improvement in theory and technique. Construction of the first electron storage ring (Tantalus I at Wisconsin) had been completed a year prior in the United States, but the extraordinary power and potential of synchrotron radiation had not yet become widely known or accessible to the world's researchers. Advances in computing power, data processing algorithms, detectors, and high-intensity x-rays have since allowed SAXS to progress far beyond what Guinier envisioned. But while biology lavished much effort on crystallography due to its ability to determine high-resolution structures of individual biomolecules, relatively little attention was paid to biological applications of SAXS until recently. As structural biology has advanced, many important phenomena have come to the forefront which do not lend themselves to crystallography.
With the modern technology available today, much more structural information can be extracted from biological solution SAXS (BioSAXS) measurements than was once thought possible. In the early part of this 21st century, the once mature technology of SAXS is finding many new applications in biology. Much of the art of doing good BioSAXS experiments goes back to Guinier's early work. In this introductory talk, I will cover some of the essential basics in collecting good BioSAXS data. I will also outline the current BioSAXS capabilities at MacCHESS and discuss future directions.
2009 Run
Sept. 23rd to Nov. 10th
