Sussex Crystallization Platform for Bioscience discovery

我们正在寻求资金，为生命科学学院的结晶设施购买新的最先进的结晶设备，使我们能够可视化和研究大分子机器控制人类细胞复制、生存和生长的方式，以及微生物产生的蛋白质复合体如何利用和扰乱人类细胞系统。这项工作的核心是能够捕获这些蛋白质和蛋白质复合体的固体晶体形式，使我们能够使用X射线来确定它们的三维形状和详细的原子结构，以及这种结构在不同条件下是如何改变的。我们寻求资金支持购买最先进的结晶平台，使我们能够更快、更有效率和更有效地做到这一点。该平台集成了软件，包括结晶机器人、先进的大容量自动晶体成像系统和用于结晶屏构建的下一代液体处理机。这些设备将被安置在苏塞克斯的结晶设施中，该设施在推进我们关于大分子组件结构和功能的生物科学发现研究组合方面取得了巨大成功；这项研究产生的大量成果使苏塞克斯被国际公认为结构生物学的卓越中心。在这些发现的基础上，该设施还促进了我们与苏塞克斯药物发现中心的转化研究活动的增长，并导致整个学院启动的结构导向化合物和药物发现项目的数量迅速增加。这种新设备将使我们能够与我们的生物科学项目方案保持同步，并产生更高质量的数据和实验结果。

We are seeking funding to purchase new state-of-the-art crystallization equipment for the School of Life Science's crystallisation facility to enable us to visualise and study the way in which large molecular machines control the replication, survival and growth of human cells and how the protein complexes produced by microbes exploit and disrupt human cell systems. Central to this work is the ability to capture these proteins and protein complexes in solid crystal form to allow us to take a 'snapshop' using X-rays to determine their three-dimensional shape and detailed atomic structure and how this is altered in different conditions.Financial support is sought for the purchase of a state-of-the-art crystallisation platform to enable us to do this faster, more efficiently and more effectively. The platform platform has integrated software and comprises a crystallization robot, an advanced large capacity automated crystal imaging system and a next-generation liquid handler for crystallization screen building. The equipment will be housed in the crystallization facility at Sussex which has been highly successful in advancing our bioscience discovery research portfolio on the structure and function of macromolecular assemblies; the large number of outputs generated from this research has led to Sussex being internationally recognised as a centre of excellence for structural biology. Building on these discoveries, the facility has also enabled the growth of our translational research activities with the Sussex Drug Discovery Centre and resulted in a rapid expansion of the number of structure-led compound and drug discovery projects initiated across the School. This new equipment will enable us to move at pace with our programmes of bioscience projects and to generate higher quality data and experimental outcomes.