€10 million EU project devoted to biocrystallography
Europe to advance their research in the field of 'biological
crystallography,' which aims to create precise, 3-D "architectural"
models of biological molecules.
These models help to understand biological processes, for example, 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 EU project BIOXHIT ((Biocrystallography on a Highly Integrated Technology Platform) plans to integrate and develop technologies at European centres for research in structural biology.
The EU's Framework Programmes are the world's largest, publicly funded, research and technological development plan. The Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) funds collaborative research and innovation. It has an overall budget of €19 billion.
"These tools were not originally designed for the high-throughput work required today because of the number of molecules discovered in the many genome sequencing projects. Each step of three-dimensional analysis is at a different state at each facility," said Dr. Kim Henrick from the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), one of the UK project partners.
"This grant will support the development and the integration of the best technology at each step, and then spread that across all of the sites."
One immediate effect of BIOXHIT will be a reduction in the time involved in obtaining each structure. 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.
One result of this might be to attract more researchers to work on protein structures.
"Biocrystallography is a complex area that used to be limited to a small number of specialists," says Claire Horton, FP6UK National Contact Point for Life sciences, genomics and biotechnology for health. "This has now changed and we have researchers in all areas of biology who want to solve molecular structures."
"BIOXHIT not only make this very user friendly but it will also allow them to send samples and work remotely," she added.
