Watching enzymes at work: Using X-ray lasers to decipher reaction mechanisms

Speaker: Dr. Jan Kern

Program Description
While structural biology can give us static pictures of many molecular machines (enzymes) we often lack knowledge about the detailed movements of individual atoms/groups that are essential for the actual function. Pushing structural biology from looking at a frozen single snapshot of an enzyme towards recording “movies” while the enzyme is now becoming possible using femtosecond X-ray pulses from X-ray lasers. These allow to probe the active site of an enzyme at room temperature in a time resolved manner without the problems of radiation damage. Several examples of systems we studied with this approach including photoactive systems as well as a number of metalloenzymes important in either the bioenergy or health sector.