Science | Robin Owen

Robin Owen
Microfocus MX

Robin Owen is Beamline Scientist on Beamline I24. After completing his DPhil in the Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics at the University of Oxford, he worked as post doc at the MX beamlines of the Swiss Light Source. His main research areas are radiation damage of protein crystals, the use of complementary methods in MX, and the development of methods for time resolved structure determination.

Email: Robin Owen
Tel: +44 (0) 1235 778522
Beamline I24: Microfocus MX

Key Research Areas

Macromolecular crystallography, radiation damage, microcrystallography, complementary methods, spectroscopy, room temperature crystallography, time resolved structural science

Current Research Interests

The weakly diffracting nature of macromolecular crystals and high flux densities at modern MX beamlines means that radiation damage is often a limiting factor in macromolecular crystallography. This problem is further exacerbated at microfocus beamlines where flux densities are even higher and the diffracting power of the crystals may be even lower. My research focuses on understanding radiation damage with a view to maximising the amount of useful information a crystallographer can extract from a crystal.

One aspect of this work is the introduction of complementary methods to the MX beamlines at diamond. The availability of in-situ UV-Vis spectroscopy will permit real time tracking of X-ray induced changes. Importantly this work will also allow detailed, local chemical information to be obtained from cryo-cooled protein crystals, complementing and providing insight on the static atomic models obtained via X-ray crystallography as part of a standard MX synchrotron experiment.

Radiation damage in MX is typically mitigated by the cooling of crystals to 100K. In some cases however cryo-cooling is not possible, or significantly degrades crystal quality. Crystal size may also be a limiting factor making such an approach necessary. We are therefore currently developing instrumentation and experimental approaches to allow room temperature microcrystallography.

A limitation of conventional MX is that the model obtained provides a static snapshot of the reaction of interest. For a complete understanding of how systems function it is vital to be able to watch and understand chemical reactions and biological processes as they occur. Together with a group based at the Research Complex at Harwell I am working on the development of methods and instrumentation for time resolved crystallography.

Selected Publications

  1. Gwyndaf Evans, Danny Axford, David Waterman, Robin L. Owen Macromolecular Microcrystallography Crystallography Reviews (2011) 17 105-142
  2. Robin L Owen, Briony A Yorke, James A Gowdy and Arwen R Pearson Revealing low dose radiation damage using single crystal spectroscopy J. Synchrotron Rad.. (2011). 18, 367-373
  3. Jun Aishima, Robin L. Owen, Danny Axford, Emma Shepherd, Graeme Winter, Karl Levik, Paul Gibbons, Alun Ashton and Gwyndaf Evans High-speed crystal detection and characterisation using a fast readout detector. Acta Cryst. (2010). D66, 1032–1035
  4. A. R. Pearson and R. L. Owen. Combining X-ray crystallography and single crystal spectroscopy to probe enzyme mechanisms. Biochem Soc Trans. (2009), 37, 378–381.
  5. K. S. Paithankar, R. L. Owen and E. F. Garman Absorbed dose calculations for macromolecular crystals: improvements to RADDOSE J. Synchrotron Rad. (2009), 16, 152–162
  6. R. L. Owen, J. M. Holton, C. Schulze-Briese and E. F. Garman. Determination of X-ray flux using silicon pin diodes J. Synchrotron Rad. (2009), 16, 143–151
  7. J. McGeehan, R. B.G. Ravelli, J. W. Murray, R. L. Owen, F. Cipriani, S. McSweeney, M. Weik and E. F. Garman. Colouring Cryo-Cooled Crystals: on-line microspectrophotometry. J. Synchrotron Rad. (2009), 16, 163–172
  8. R. L. Owen, A. R. Pearson, A. Meents, P. Boehler, V. Thominet and C. Schulze-Briese A novel on-axis multi-mode spectrometer at X10SA of the Swiss Light Source J. Synchrotron Rad. (2009), 16, 173–182
  9. G. Malojčić, R. L. Owen, J. P. A. Grimshaw, M. S. Brozzo, H. Dreher-Teo, and R. Glockshuber A structural and biochemical basis for PAPS-independent sulfuryl transfer by aryl sulfotransferase from uropathogenic Escherichia coli. PNAS (2008), 105, 19217-19222
  10. Robin L. Owen, Enrique Rudiño-Piñera and Elspeth Garman, Experimental determination of the radiation dose limit for cryocooled protein crystals. PNAS (2006), 103, 4912-4917
  11. Elspeth Garman and Robin Leslie Owen. Cryocooling and radiation damage in macromolecular crystallography Acta. Cryst. (2006) D62, 32-47.