SERIAL CRYSTALLOGRAPHY SOLUTIONS FOR SYNCHROTRON RADIATION FACILITIES
Grant period
2020-11-01 - 2022-04-30
Funding body
European Union
Call number
ERC-2020-PoC
Grant number
963936
Identifier
G:(EU-Grant)963936
Note: Serial-X aims to expand of the use of serial crystallography across the academic and industrial life-science community by introducing low cost, flexible and easy to use solutions to the most common problems that occur in serial crystallography experiments today. Serial crystallography is a developing method of macromolecular X-ray crystallography that allows diffraction data to be collected at room temperature from a continuous stream of microcrystals. “ProtonPump”, the ERC Advanced Grant awarded to Richard Neutze, applies time-resolved serial crystallography to observe structural changes that occur during the reduction of molecular oxygen to water by cytochrome c oxidase. This PoC builds directly from technical solutions developed to achieve the scientific goals of “ProtonPump”. Serial crystallography was first developed at an X-ray free electron laser but is increasingly being used at synchrotron radiation facilities. Synchrotrons can potentially support up to two orders of magnitude more serial crystallography users than X-ray free electron lasers. Synchrotron based serial crystallography experiments may also become a mainstream method in structure-based-drug-design. But these possibilities will not be realized if the current lack of standardization in sample delivery continues, which is currently prohibitively expensive and requires a high level of technical support to operate. Serial-X will solve this problem by developing and bringing to market standardized, low-cost, flexible and easy-to-use solutions for sample delivery in serial crystallography studies at synchrotron radiation sources. Serial-X will thereby remove the greatest obstacle currently preventing scientists from using serial crystallography for their own research or for structure based drug-design within a pharmaceutical drug discovery context. A spin off company will be formed to manufacture and distribute the technologies developed within this Proof of Concept Grant.
Recent Publications
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Record created 2021-10-10, last modified 2023-02-12