Beamline scientists at the National Synchrotron Light Source are constantly trying to meet the unmet needs of users who collect x-ray diffraction data. Crystallographers in the pharmaceutical industry are charged with discovering the three-dimensional crystal structure of proteins which are drug targets. The development of a generic high-throughput crystallographic assay would be useful for discovering many new ligands. In addition revelaing the crystal structure of a protein can allow medical and computational chemists to perform rational drug design. However, before drug design can begin, many thousands of crystallization experiments need to take place in order to find the ideal conditions for protein crystal growth. Currently, there is no known method for predicting protein crystallization conditions.
There is also an increasing demand for beamline technologies which can be used to diffract microcrystals. Both of these sectors require many thousands of experiments, yet it is widely assumed that the current state of the art for collecting data from small crystals is not the optimal choice moving forward. Indeed, many alternatives to single crystal X-ray diffraction experiments exist. Particularly with the construction of NSLS-II, there will be a window of opportunity for large quantities of experimentation to take place regarding new methods of crystallization and data collection in order to improve this process. Therefore, our group has been focusing on identifying and addressing these needs by developing a new method for growing, mounting, and diffracting marcomolecular crystals.
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Graduate coursework and teaching assistantships has been chronicled for his last 3 years, during which Matthew completed a M.S. of biomedical engineering. Projects, presentations, and assignments can be viewed.
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