Essential to our understanding of a large number of biological processes is the characterization of molecular structure and molecular interactions. Faculty at the University of Califomia San Diego proposes to establish a Macromolecular Biophysics Facility (MBF) to advance these types of studies. The function of the MBF is to provide the necessary instrumentation for biomolecular and biophysical studies and to facilitate interactions between investigators at UCSD with interests in biophysical and biomolecular research. The primary goal of the MBF is to create a biophysical infrastructure that will make essential instrumentation readily available and at the same time foster interactions between researchers. Instruments to be provided by this project include a circular dichroism spectrometer to analyze secondary structure of proteins and conformational changes due to ligand binding, an analytical ultracentrifuge for the characterization of the physical properties of macromolecules, and a surface plasmon resonance instrument for the study of protein-protein, protein-DNA, and ligand receptor interactions. These instruments will be combined with peptide synthesis and N-terminal sequencing instrumentation currently located in individual laboratories that will be contributed to the facility. The MBF will be used by a diverse set of faculty for biophysical analysis of macromolecules including analysis of protein-protein, protein-lipid, and protein-nucleic acid interactions important in such diverse biological processes as cell-cell interactions, signal transduction and transcription. To be effective, a facility such as this must be properly administered and maintained. The aim of the facility is not simply to purchase state-of-the-art instrumentation, but to establish a well-coordinated facility where staff will be available for training students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty. The MBF is part of a concerted effort to maximize the research environment at UCSD an d to foster interdisciplinary research efforts. The MBF will join three other existing centers at UCSD (the NIR Research Resource for Data Collection, the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research, and the National Biological Computing Resource) under the umbrella of the newly formed Center for Research in Biological Structure and will complement the existing centers by providing crucial common analysis instruments for macromolecular biophysics.
