Star-Wars In Structural Biology with X-Ray Free Electron Lasers

Speaker: Dr. Petra Fromme

Program Description
In the Biodesign Center for Applied Structural Discovery at Arizona State University, we aim to develop new revolutionary techniques that reveal the structure and dynamics of biomolecules towards new visionary discoveries in Medicine and Energy Conversion. Biological processes are highly dynamic, while most of the structures of biomolecules determined by X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM represent a static picture of the molecule frozen in time and space. X-ray Free Electron Lasers open a new era in structural biology where X-ray diffraction “snapshots” are collected from a fully hydrated stream of nanocrystals of biomolecules, using femtosecond X-ray pulses. In my talk I will give an overview of recent experiments and structural discoveries with X-ray Free Electron Lasers and report on the development of compact X-ray Free Electron Lasers at Arizona State University.