This May I published a paper in the journal Biochemistry with my previous lab group at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The publication is about the development of a new platform technology for high-throughput protein crystallography which has potential to greatly accelerate the field of structure-based drug discovery. We analyzed protein crystals using x-ray diffraction at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) and Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory. X-ray crystallography is important because it can reveal the atomic three-dimensional structure of proteins, which allows scientists to visualize where drugs bind and how they work on the molecular level. This is even helpful for discovering new drugs and understanding how things like proteins function in the body.
Front-page of the Biochemistry website featuring our article
What was unique about our experiment, was that we transported very tiny protein crystals (microcrystals) through the air using sound waves. To do this I went to California and used a special instrument called the Echo Liquid Handler, manufactured by Labcyte, Inc., which uses acoustic drop ejection to rapidly dispense nanoliter droplets of fluid.
The Department of Energy is currently building a new light source where I work at Brookhaven National Laboratory called NSLS-II for $912m which will come online in 2014. This technology we developed in this paper should help speed up the process for data collection at the new NSLS-II.
A key figure in our paper showing nanoliter droplets of fluid being dispensed (A). The droplets we created contained microcrystals, which were then shot onto the Kapton mesh (B). These samples can be diffracted at the beamline (C) and used to solve the structure of proteins.
This year I have had the distinct proviledge of attending the Rapidata 2009 Course at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Organized by Robert Sweet, Alexei Soares, and many others, Rapidata 2009 has been a tremendous learning experience focusing on the practical aspects of protein crystallography (PX). Over the last 24 hours I have met students and faculty from Harvard, MIT, Rockefeller, Providence, Purdue, Oxford, Sweden, the Netherlands, Brazil and Switzerland. It is truly a gathering of some of the best crystallographers in the world who are the globe’s leaders in cryo-cooling, structure solution, phasing, software development and beamline operations. The week long program features lectures and hands on tutorials where students can bring actual samples from their home laboratories, collect data from them and solve the structure at the NSLS. I will be working on a previous data set containing multiwavelength anomolous diffraction (MAD) data and try to solve its structure. I hope to report back from the course with more details later this week.
Last week on Wednesday, February 4th 2009 the Stony Brook University Center for Inclusive Education, Graduate Student Organization (GSO), and the Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate hosted highly a successful event at the Stony Brook University, Charles B. Wang Center. The occasion was a film screening of the documentary “Naturally Obsessed” made by Richard and Carole Rifkind. I had seen this film a few months prior at Brookhaven National Laboratory at the NSLS where I work, and spoke to the Rifkinds afterwards. I told them it would be great to come to Stony Brook University and do a screening for the grad students who would really love it.
It was a fairly large project, and required a lot of communication and advanced planning. Three months prior to the event I had requested $650 funding from the GSO to provide food for the event and an honorarium for the Rifkind’s. Here is a copy of my proposal to the GSO.Working with the CIE was a true pleasure and they provided almost unlimited support. Their director helped me advertise all over with a campus wide email, a posting on the University’s front page, the career center’s website, and emails to all the GSO senators. I sent personal invites to many professors and several of them came. Michael Hadjiargyrou from the Department of Biomedical Engineering was able to participate in our discussion following the showing along with Dean of the Graduate School, Lawrence Martin. In the end, it was a huge success and a lot of fun. We had over 130 attendees come in for the movie and discussion afterwards.
There was one glitch, which was out of our control. The DVD froze two times when it was playing, and on the second time, it did not start again. Everyone was left hanging! So finally someone went back there to see what was happening and they guy just hit the skip forward track button and went to the next scene so we missed like 10 minutes. I was pretty crushed by that, especially since for me, every minute of that movie is like amazing. And the scene it jumped to came a little bit out of nowhere, but everyone understood what was going on. The Q&A session was also a little nerve racking, but I had prepared before hand with Richard Rifkind and had questions lined up. They went over well and the discussion was thought provoking.
I asked one question that everyone loved: “If you were pretending President Obama was sitting here with us, what are five things you would tell him that you think are important regarding the future of science and education”. We got some great responses which I hope to post later.
