Small‐Angle X‐Ray Scattering and Structural Biology

APR 01, 1985

Intense x‐ray synchrotron radiation, from multi‐GeV electron storage rings, is giving new life to an old technique for studying the structure of the large biological molecules that control the shape of the cell.

DOI: 10.1063/1.880970

Sebastian Doniach

It has been 25 years since Max Perutz and John Kendrew, working in Cambridge, England, used x‐ray crystallography to determine in three dimensions the molecular structure of the oxygen‐transport proteins hemoglobin and myoglobin. Their technique—xray diffraction from crystallized samples—continues to be one of the central sources of structural information for biology at the molecular level. Now, however, the advent of powerful new synchrotron x‐ray sources based on multi‐GeV electron storage rings is opening up new ways in which one can probe biological structure at the subcellular level.

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More about the authors

Sebastian Doniach, Stanford University.