AREA DETECTOR FOR PROTEIN CRYSTALLOGRAPHY

了解生物大分子的原子结构可以 美国开始了解一些复杂的化学过程 发生在生物体内。X-射线技术 衍射分析正被用来计算出原子 其中一些生物分子的结构，特别是那些 被认为是生物化学或临床上重要的。基于 解释这些结构合理的药物设计和蛋白质 工程学开始成为可能，所以我们可以在化学上 综合而不仅仅是找到治疗疾病的方法。 X射线衍射分析的一个主要实际困难是 晶体大小、质量和耐用性。以帮助补偿 水晶问题一个人需要尽可能最有效的 用于测量X射线数据的仪器。尤其是其中一个 需要准确、灵敏、光子计数、位置=敏感区域 探测器，我们建造了这样的探测器。 我们的设计是以非常成功的探测器为基础的 加州大学圣地亚哥分校(UC.San Diego)研究资源。在第一阶段，我们 对设计进行了修改，使其更加坚固和简化 这些探测器的制造。在第二阶段，我们打算 将探测器封装成更完整的商用衍射仪 系统，并开发一个更大、更快的版本 探测器设计允许使用更小、更差的晶体，从而 允许临床和生化工作继续进行，这将是 是可能的 在此之前。

Knowing the atomic structures of large biological molecules allows us to begin to understand some of the complex chemical processes taking place inside living organisms. The techniques of X-ray diffraction analysis are being used to work out the atomic structures of some of these biological molecules, especially ones deemed biochemically or clinically important. Based on interpretation of these structures rational drug design and protein engineering are beginning to be possible so we can chemically synthesize not just find cures for diseases. A major practical difficulty with X-ray diffraction analysis is crystal size, quality and durability. To help compensate for crystal problems one needs the most efficient possible instrumentation for measuring the X-ray data. In particular one needs accurate, sensitive, photon-counting, position=sensitive area detectors and we build such detectors. Our design is based on that of the very successful detectors used in the U.C. San Diego (NIH) Research Resource. During Phase I we worked out modifications to the design to ruggedize and simplify manufacture of these detectors. During Phase II we intend to package the detector into a more complete commercial diffractometer system and develop a larger and much faster version of our present detector design to allow use of even smaller poorer crystals thus allowing clinical and biochemical work to proceed which would have been possible before.