Department of Physics, Astronomy and Geosciences – Fall 2022 Seminar Series
Join the Department of Physics, Astronomy and Geosciences Department for the
Fall 2022 Seminar Series featuring:
Eaton Lattman, PhD.
Affiliations: Department of Physics, Arizona State University
Department of Biophysics, Johns Hopkins University, retired
“Movies of Proteins in Action Enabled by X-ray Lasers”
In many cases protein molecules retain their biological activity in crystals. This is possible because protein crystals are about 50% water. Reactions in crystallo can be triggered by light pulses, temperature jumps, or even the diffusion of small ligands into the lattice. Recently, X‑ray lasers have made it possible to image such reactions as they occur – to make molecular movies of proteins. X-ray lasers produce pulses as short as 10-15 seconds, and a single pulse can generate observable diffraction from micrometer-sized crystals. X-ray diffraction data can be collected at chosen timepoints after the trigger, and each time point represents a frame in the movie. Sub-picosecond resolution has already been achieved, and the method is in its infancy.
Friday, September 9, 2022
11:00am-12:00pm
SC 1230
Categorised in: General
This post was written by Charles, Amanda G.