Europe gives funding to protein structure project
structural genomics, awarding the European Molecular Biology
Laboratory (EMBL) and its partners €10 million to create a common
platform for researchers working in the field of biological
crystallography.
Biological crystallography aims to create precise, three-dimensional 'architectural' models of biological molecules. Without such models at hand, it is close to impossible to understand biological processes, such as the way proteins and other molecules behave in cells, or to design new drugs that will affect their functions.
The most common method for obtaining such three-dimensional models is to bombard crystallised proteins with high-powered X-rays generated at huge synchrotron facilities.
The new BIOXHIT programme, short for Biocrystallography on a Highly Integrated Technology Platform, aims to take the cream of technologies used at major European centres for research in structural biology, develop them further and weave them into a single, high-throughput platform that can be accessed by scientists across the continent.
EMBL-Hamburg will coordinate the project, which unites over 20 partners from nine European countries, including all European synchrotrons. Similar initiatives are already underway in the US and Japan.
"We already have all the single components necessary to solve molecular structures," said Victor Lamzin, grant coordinator at EMBL-Hamburg.
"We have synchrotrons, we can grow protein crystals, we have the software components and we can obtain structures. But the tools we use were not originally designed for high-throughput work. This is what is needed now because of the tens of thousands of new molecules we have discovered in the many genome sequencing projects."
Several new European synchrotrons, now on the drawing board or under construction, are scheduled to go on line by 2006 or 2007.
One immediate effect of BIOXHIT will be a significant reduction in the time involved in obtaining each structure, according to the EMBL. The project specifically calls for improvements in the process by which samples are handled, the equipment needed to detect X-ray patterns, and the computers and software needed to model structures. A result of this will be to attract more researchers to work on protein structures.
"Biocrystallography used to be a field for specialists," according to Lamzin, "but today, researchers from all walks of biology want to solve molecular structures at the synchrotrons. The new platform will make this process very user-friendly; it will even allow them to send us their samples and work remotely, from their own institutions."
