The aims of the Structural Biology Program are to understand biological function at the structural and mechanistic levels, to determine the structural basis of disease-related alterations in biological macromolecules, and to aid the development of novel anti-tumor agents through collaborative studies. The biological processes of interest include cell growth and proliferation, DNA-damage response, axon guidance, information processing by neural ensembles, transport vesicle budding and protein sorting in the secretory pathway, and RNA/DNA tertiary structure and its recognition by proteins. These areas are studied through interdisciplinary approaches that include not only the core structural biology methods of x-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy and optical imaging, but also biochemical, cellular biological and genetic methods.
Research involving three-dimensional structural information focuses on (i) macromolecular assemblies that represent a cellular machinery or signal-processing unit, (ii) the elucidation of function of newly discovered cancer-related proteins, and (iii) experimental anti-tumor drugs bound to their protein or DNA targets. Optical imaging methods are being applied to record neural activity in genetically engineered animals, in order to understand how neural ensembles store and process information.
