AAAS

World-leading researchers from Diamond Light Source will be attending the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Meeting in Washington DC this year, presenting a session on “Infectious Diseases: Pushing the Boundaries of Physiology”.

Learn from some of the world leading researchers working on cryo-electron microscopy delivering revolutionary science…

The march of advancing technology is wide reaching, touching almost every part of modern life. Drug discovery is no exception. Structure-based drug design has seen a surge over the last 20 years, where technological advances have enabled scientists to reveal detailed structural information, helping them to understand how biomolecules function and interact.

However, capturing images of biological molecules is not a simple task. Some established structure determination techniques rely on creating ordered protein crystals. Scientists can capture a series of stills and piece them together to determine the shape of a crystallised protein, but they cannot see the biomolecules in action. Some of the most sought-after drug targets are the hardest to crystallise, which limits the capabilities of structure determination.

This symposium will focus on the subject of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: cryo-electron microscopy, a revolutionary technique for biomolecule structure determination that probes proteins frozen in solution. Advances in automation are helping to improve the throughput of the entire process, from specimen preparation to the generation of the final 3D map. Better microscopes, electron detectors and computer programs are pushing the technique further. Attendees will gain a better understanding of how this rapid progress is having a direct impact on drug discovery and medical treatments, including helping to identify a plausible mechanism for restricting HIV-1 infection.

Moderator: Dave Stuart, Diamond Light Source, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
Speakers:

• “Cryo-Electron Tomography: The Promise and Challenges of Structural Biology in situ” - Wolfgang Baumeister, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany
• “Automated Tools for Electron Microscopy” - Bridget Carragher, New York Structural Biology Center, New York, NY
• “Interrogating HIV-1 on a New Level” - Peijun Zhang, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Friday, February 15, 2019

08:00 AM - 09:30 AM
Marriott Wardam Park Hotel Washington DC, American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual meeting, 2019.

Register to Attend