CNIC: US-UK-Czech Republic Research Planning for Collaboration on Aperiodic Protein Crystallography

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The research planning visit with expert scientists in the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic will initiate cooperative research intended to advance knowledge in the atomic visualization of the macromolecules of life. Protein crystallography uses X-rays and crystallized proteins to provide detailed pictures of biologically-important large molecules. This project development effort is focused on a type of crystal that currently cannot be imaged as the needed software does not exist. The team's ultimate goal is to develop methods to solve these important structures and, for this, the international collaboration is essential. This catalytic collaboration is expected to impact the field of structural biology in a fundamental way by providing new tools to solve structures that currently can not be deciphered. The research is integrated with education to provide graduate and undergraduate students with early career research experiences abroad. Technical Abstract:This purpose of this visit is to initiate and plan the development of software for the refinement of incommensurately-modulated aperiodic protein crystal structures. The U.S. PI and two U.S. student researchers will visit Dr. Garib Murshudov at Cambridge University, in the UK, who is a leading authority in periodic protein crystal structure refinement, and author of the REFMAC software package. Then, they will visit Dr. Václav Petrícek, Dr. Michal Dusek and Dr. Lukás Palatinus at the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, who have written JANA, an aperiodic crystallography software package that is used to refine small molecule structures in (3+1)D superspace. To solve the structures from (3+1)D modulated protein crystals, software is needed that includes components from REFMAC and JANA. The research planning visit should establish the balanced and expert international collaboration needed to achieve this goal. After the research plannning stage, the principal investigator intends to apply for follow-on research support through NSF programs in Molecular and Cellular Biosciences.