High brilliance synchrotrons for SAXS and WAXS

Bob Fischetti

Synchrotron based, X-ray crystallography has emerged as a very powerful tool for the study of proteins and macromolecular complexes. Recent advances in crystallization techniques have allowed the "crystallization bottleneck" to be overcome for certain classes of molecules, but still remains a significant challenge for large complexes. However the periodic boundary conditions of a three-dimensional crystal often limit which conformers of a molecule will crystal and severely limit one's ability to study dynamics.

SAXS/WAXS is a very complementary technique to X-ray crystallography; and over the past decade, it has become the tool of choice for many researchers wanted to study biological molecules in a more natural solution state. Thus one can explore the static ensemble average structure, and more importantly, the time-resolved dynamics of molecules initiated via external perturbations. In addition, SAXS can be used to determine the arrangement of the components of a macromolecular complex.

In my lecture, I will preset recent and planned developments for SAXS/WAXS at the APS, and will summarize the current and planned state of beamlines at other third-generation synchrotron facilities around the world. Micro-crystallographic techniques are often needed to study the most challenging macromolecular complexes because they yield tiny crystals. I will compare and contrast the needs of theses complementary techniques and summarize the state of micro-crystallography beamlines around the world.

Date/time: Tuesday, 23 October 2012, 9:00