OUR MISSION:

To be the world leader in the development
of non-crystallographic techniques
for the determination of membrane protein structures

The ARC Centre of Excellence for Coherent X-ray Science (CXS) brings together leading Australian researchers in the fields of X-ray physics, the design and use of synchrotron radiation sources, and the preparation, manipulation and characterization of biological samples.

Its aim is to open a new frontier in biotechnology; the non-crystallographic structure determination of membrane proteins. These proteins mediate the activity of pharmaceuticals in human medical therapies. Their structures, however, are still mostly unknown because they do not form suitable crystals for analysis using the conventional crystallographic techniques that have driven almost all progress in structural biology. A breakthrough in this area would revolutionise rational drug design through the insight that would be gained into the functionalities of these proteins, and would have far-reaching consequences throughout the pharmaceutical industry.

Our research is driven by our access to existing third-generation synchrotron light sources and to the Australian Synchrotron, which will become operational in 2007. We are also exploring the application to imaging problems of short wavelength high-harmonic generation sources and free-electron X-ray lasers that are under development worldwide. When combined with non-crystallographic diffractive imaging techniques, the brightness and intensity of these sources in femto-second pulses offers the possibility of taking structural snapshots of biomolecules. We are exploring fundamental issues in the use of these new light sources, including the nature of the interaction between intense coherent X-rays and electronic matter, the efficiency of diffraction processes in these highly coupled light-matter systems, the detection of the scattered light, the preparation and handling of suitable biological samples, the management of radiation damage throughout the interaction and the design of algorithms to extract structural information from diffraction data.

It is an ambitious inter-disciplinary program of research.