An international team of researchers, including Dr. Petra Fromme of the Common Fund’s Structural Biology program, has reported a novel method for determining protein structure that overcomes many of the technical difficulties associated with previous methods. The new method, reported in the February 3, 2011 issue of Nature, uses smaller amounts of protein samples, causes less damage to the samples, and is much faster than traditional methods.  Using this new method, Dr. Fromme and colleagues determined the structure of photosystem 1, a large and highly complex protein used by plants during photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide into sugar using energy from the sun. This structure matched the previously reported structure of photosystem 1 obtained using traditional methods, demonstrating the accuracy of the new method.  This new method should allow scientists to determine the structures of many different kinds of proteins, including those that have been resistant to traditional approaches.  It is particularly difficult to determine the structure of proteins embedded within cell membranes, yet these proteins play critical roles in health and disease and are common drug targets.  The Common Fund’s Structural Biology program seeks new ways to determine the structure of membrane proteins, in the hopes of using this information to design drugs that will bind to a well-defined structural feature, producing fewer side effects.  The breakthrough method developed by Dr. Fromme and colleagues will likely be a powerful tool in determining the structure of numerous membrane proteins

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