Operations and Maintenance Support: UBC Regional Structural Biology Facility

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Structural biology is a branch of the Life Sciences that seeks to provide atomic-level descriptions of the three-dimensional structures of biological molecules, including proteins, DNA, RNA and sugars. This structural information is critical for understanding the diverse functions of these biomolecules in living cells, and provides a "molecular blueprint" for applications spanning protein engineering to drug development. Modern structural biology is dependent upon three cornerstone technologies: nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy for investigating the structures and motions of small to medium sized biomolecues, X-ray crystallography for determining the highest resolution structures of a wide range of proteins, nucleic acids and carbohydrates, and cryo-electron microscopy for near atomic level characterization of very large macromolecular complexes. Each of these complementary technologies relies on access to sophisticated instrumentation and expert personnel in order to solve the most challenging problems of the Life Sciences.