Protein Crystallization Hits

Exciting news that I need to share with you: the growing Emerald adopts a new name and leadership: 

We're Emerald Bio now:

The details of our transformation are given in this news release: Leading Proteomics Company Transitions to Emerald Bio, Chooses Key Leadership to Address Growing Market Opportunities

George Abe, new Chief Executive Officer and Peter Nollert, new Chief Technologist at Emerald Bio

We're looking forward to continuing to supply you with Emerald's protein crystallization screening kits, protein crystallization optimization reagents, stock solutions, protein crystallization plates and with sophisticated laboratory instrumentation such as the Opti Matrix Maker for the production of crystallization optimization matrices and the Protein Maker for parallel protien production. 

There's more to come.

Cheers,

Peter

The NIH has announced on Sept 30 the members of the third Protein Structure Initiative: PSI:Biology Centers for High-Throughput Structure Determination.

Altogether there are 23 grants for structural biology research totaling up to $290 million over the next five years. This is the list of the centers that are expected to 'produce protein structures for functional studies'.

My   C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S   go to:

Joint Center for Structural Genomics
Principal investigator: Ian A. Wilson, D.Phil., Scripps Research Institute

Midwest Center for Structural Genomics
Principal investigator: Andrzej Joachimiak, Ph.D., University of Chicago

New York Structural Genomics Research Consortium
Principal investigator: Steven Almo, Ph.D., Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University

Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium
Principal investigator: Gaetano T. Montelione, Ph.D., Rutgers University

Center for Membrane Proteins in Infectious Diseases
Principal investigator: Petra Fromme, Ph.D., Arizona State University

Center for Structure of Membrane Proteins
Principal investigator: Robert M. Stroud, Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco

Center for the X-ray Structure Determination of Human Transporters
Principal investigators: Douglas C. Rees, Ph.D., California Institute of Technology; Geoffrey A. Chang, Ph.D., Scripps Research Institute; Michael H.B. Stowell, Ph.D., University of Colorado

GPCR Network
Principal investigator: Raymond C. Stevens, Ph.D., Scripps Research Institute

Membrane Protein Structural Biology Consortium
Principal investigators: Michael G. Malkowski, Ph.D., Hauptman Woodward Medical Institute; Mark E. Dumont, Ph.D., University of Rochester; Michael Wiener, Ph.D., University of Virginia

Membrane Protein Structures by Solution NMR
Principal investigator: James J. Chou, Ph.D., Harvard University Medical School

New York Consortium on Membrane Protein Structure
Principal investigator: Wayne A. Hendrickson, Ph.D., New York Structural Biology Center

Transcontinental EM Initiative for Membrane Protein Structure
Principal investigator: David L. Stokes, Ph.D., New York Structural Biology Center

Transmembrane Protein Center
Principal investigator: Brian G. Fox, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison

Assembly, Dynamics and Evolution of Cell-Cell and Cell-Matrix Adhesions
Principal investigators: Robert Liddington, Ph.D., Burnham Institute for Medical Research; William James Nelson, Ph.D., Stanford University

Atoms-to-Animals: Structural Genomics of Immunity
Principal investigator: Stanley G. Nathenson, M.D., Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University

Chaperone-Enabled Studies of Epigenetic Regulation Enzymes
Principal investigator: Anthony A. Kossiakoff, Ph.D., University of Chicago

Consortia for High-Throughput-Enabled Structural Biology Partnerships
Principal investigator: Joshua N. Adkins, Ph.D., Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories

Partnership for High-Throughput-Enabled Biology of the Mitochondrial Proteome
Principal investigator: John L. Markley, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison

Ribonucleoprotein Complexes Regulating T-Cell Activation
Principal investigators: James R. Williamson, Ph.D., Scripps Research Institute; Daniel R. Salomon, M.D., Scripps Research Institute

Structure, Dynamics and Activation Mechanisms of Chemokine Receptors
Principal investigators: Tracy M. Handel, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego; Ruben A. Abagyan, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego

Structure-Function Studies of Tight Junction Membrane Proteins
Principal investigator: Alan S. Yu, M.D., University of Southern California

Structures of Mtb Proteins Conferring Susceptibility to Known Mtb Inhibitors
Principal investigator: James C. Sacchettini, Ph.D., Texas A&M University

Structures of Protein Complexes Regulating Transcription in Embryonic Stem Cells
Principal investigator: Robert J. Fletterick, Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco

Materials Repository
Principal investigator: Josh Labaer, Ph.D., Arizona State University

Structural Biology Knowledgebase
Principal investigator:: Helen Berman, Ph.D., Rutgers University

Over the years there have been a number of Nobel Prizes awarded to scientists that have used their protein crystallization skills to provide unprecedented insight, usually at atomic resolution, into important biological processes. In appreciation of their contribution I had put these 12 crystallization heroes into the Protein Crystallizers Hall of Fame with the crystallization and structure determination of these proteins: Ribosome (2009), Water & Ion Channels (2003), RNA Polymerase (2006), Photosynthetic Reaction Centre (1988), Ion transporters (1997).

Which are the possible Protein Crystallization-related Nobel Prizes this year? What do you think - which of these target areas would you consider for a 2010 Nobel Prize (Chemistry or Medicine)?

Or here if you prefer to vote via your LinkedIn account: 

There are plenty of reasons to select these protein structures since they have provided useful insight into biological function and should therefore be worthy a 2010 Nobel Prize:

Let's keep in mind though, that the Nobel Committee may take a break from structural biology in 2010 and focus on these areas that come to mind:

□ Discoveries of pluripotent stem cells / dentritic cells

□ Technologies: human genomics, sequencing, DNA microarrays

□ Pathways and Drugs: Leptin, DNA metallo intercalators

Now, with the 2010 Nobel Prize announcements coming up next week I'm keeping my fingers crossed for yet another award for this fine scientific craft. The announcements are expected to be made on

Regardless of the outcome next week, it's definitely an occasion that's worth getting a bottle of champagne out of fridge!

Cheers,

Peter

There seems to be a live webcast from the ICCBM13, the 13th International Conference on the Crystallization of Biological Macromolecules at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Stay tuned from 12th to the 16th September 2010 to learn what's new in protein crystallization science.

I'm not planning on staying up late over here on the west coast of the US. But the talks should be avalable for download at a later time, wouldn't you think so?

Cheers,

Peter

There's so much progress in membrane protein crystallography generally, and in GPCR crystallography in particular, that I've started a new blog, called GPCR blog. I'm planning to cover topics relating to GPCR structural biology via the Emerald BioStructures website (note the URL: http://emeraldbiostructures.com/gpcrblog). For anybody who's interested in experimental GPCR crystallization conditions, these blog posts may be interesting to read: GPCR Crystallization Conditions  and GPCRs of known structure.

This is a good opportunity to attempt a quick look into the future and anticipate what's yet to come in our field. It is indeed amazing to see all the progress that's been made in the field of membrane protein research within the past ten years. When I decided to join the membrane protein structure research field - this was around the mid nineties - I was warned that this is a super high risk field, may derail my dreams of getting a PostDoc position and not land me a job in either academia or industry. And now, years later, there are so many more crystallographic membrane protein structures - getting close to hundred (depending how you count) and there are substantial efforts in the pharma and biotechnology industry to apply these difficult targets to crystallography based ligand discovery and to lead optimization in drug discovery programs. This is similar to what happened in the late 80ies to soluble protein structure research. Our game has changed dramatically since then, hasn't it?

It feels like a time warp looking at all the progress made in membrane protein structural biology.

So, what's next?

To me the next big steps in structural biology are about scale context in time and space. What does that mean?

1. A better understanding (with atomic resolution, of course) of the detailed dynamics within protein molecules as they go about their work. More precisely, an experimental understanding of how the motions of atoms and their bond rotations & translations taking place in the sub-nanosecond timescale create effects that manifest themselves in what we call "biochemical function" at the milli to second timescale (6-9 orders of magnitude scale difference).
2. The integration of structural data from atoms up, to explain the appearance of macroscopic structures such as cells and organisms (again ca. 6 orders of magnitude).

Of course both of these fields rely heavily on computational tools and require a lot of input by experimentalists as well, providing reality checks and help keeping the models grow better.

My 2 ct,
Peter