An x-ray diffractometer and area detector will be acquired. A wide variety of biological projects will be supported by the new equipment. Among the projects to be supported are further studies on crambin, a hydrophobic plant protein; purothionin, a hemolytic toxin from wheat; kringle 4, a fragment of the enzyme plasminogen; phycocyanin, a light harvesting antenna bacterial protein; and mutant aspartate transcarbamylases, an enzyme important in pyrimidine metabolism; natural products; synthetic receptors for organic molecules; metal ion complexes with nucleic acids; metal ions bound to coenzymes. These crystallographic studies on small molecules and other macromolecules will be combined with numerous other techniques such as CD, Raman, NMR and ESR spectroscopy; equilibrium binding assays and enzymatic kinetics; organic synthesis; computer graphics and molecular mechanics and structural prediction. On the whole, the intent is to look at structure-function relationships, integrating static structural information with dynamic information to gain a more complete understanding of macromolecular function. The crystallographic structural determination will also serve as an important adjunct to organic synthesis of natural products and to the design of synthetic receptors.
