Role and contribution
The EMBL Hamburg Outstation operates five protein crystallographic beam lines, two of which are tunable with a further tunable beam line being commissioned in 2003. It also operates one beam line for small angle scattering and one beam line for EXAFS measurements. In 2002, for protein crystallography, EMBL-HH provided facilities for 214 projects carried out by 70 external user groups in 381 user visits. The recently upgraded laboratory facilities and the imminent implementation of a HTP protein crystallization facility mean that EMBL-HH is able to contribute to most aspects of a structure determination. Historically synchrotron radiation was first exploited at the outstation to explore biological problems and a spin-off company is now a world leader in producing two-dimensional X-ray detectors. The scientific interests of the staff are wide, ranging from methods development to addressing problems of biological relevance. Two internationally recognized software packages have been developed. A number of the staff are associate members of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis Structural Genomics consortium and have targeted proteins from this organism within their own fields of interest
The Tucker group has experience of all parts of the structure determination pipeline from expression through to structure refinement and interpretation, with over 80 papers in peer reviewed journals. The group, which consists of the group leader, three technical officers, one postdoctoral fellow and two Ph.D. students, is especially strong in the aspects of crystallization, data collection and structure solution. The groups’ focuses are on experimental phasing methods, the structures of proteins involved in the replication of viral genomes and bacterial two-component systems. Dr. Tucker has been actively involved in the organization of, and teaching on, a variety of training courses http://www.embl-hamburg.de/training/
Scientific and Technical personnel involved : P. Tucker (Group Leader) expertise in all aspects of macromolecular crystallography, E. Mumtsidu (Senior Technical Officer) with particular experience in baculovirus expression, S. Panjikar (Senior Technical Officer) with particular experience in structure solution and F. Ridoutt (Technical Officer) with responsibility for provision of beamline infrastructure.
EMBL Hamburg, DE
