SSRL Structural Molecular Biology Summer School 2004
August 16-20, 2004

Participants

Course Organizers

Hiro Tsuruta, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist at SSRL. His research activities mainly focus on structural studies of oligomeric proteins and macromolecular assemblies primarily by non-crystalline x-ray scattering techniques.

Serena DeBeer George, Ph.D., is a Staff Scientist at SSRL. Her research focuses on the use of X-ray absorption spectroscopy to elucidate the electronic and geometric structure of bioinorganic and organometallic systems.

Clyde A. Smith, Ph.D., is Staff Scientist at SSRL. His research focuses on the structure determination of proteins and enzymes by macromolecular X-ray crystallography.

Tutors

Paul Adams, Ph.D., is a Staff Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Research interests: developing new software for automated crystallographic structure determination and data collection.

Ninian Blackburn, Ph.D., is a Professor at the Oregon Health and Science University. His areas of expertise include structure and function of oxidase and oxygenasemetalloenzymes; spectroscopy of metal sites in proteins with emphasis on EPR, EXAFS, absorption edge, and FTIR spectroscopies; coordination chemistry and biochemistry of copper. Biochemistry of metal trafficking in cells.

Ashley M. Deacon, Ph.D., is a Staff Scientist at SSRL and the Structure Determination Core leader of the Joint Center for Structural Genomics. His areas of expertise include direct methods and MAD phasing, and he was heavily involved in the development and first applications of the Shake-and-Bake algorithm to macromolecular structure determination. He is currently focused on the development of high-throughput data collection and structure determination technology for macromolecular crystallography.


Graham N. George, Ph.D., is the Canadian Research Chair in X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy, and Professor of Geological Sciences at University of Saskatchewan, Canada. His research is focused on the use of synchrotron radiation to solve structural and chemical problems in biology and chemistry. His research interests include the application of x-ray absorption spectroscopy to understand catalytic mechanisms in molybdenum enzymes and the application of XAS to obtain insight into metal toxicity,

Samar Hasnain, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist at Daresbury Laboratory and a Visiting Professor of Molecular Biophysics at JMU. His research focuses on structure function studies of metalloproteins using synchrotron radiation techniques, including x-ray crystallography, x-ray absorption spectroscopy and solution x-ray scattering.

Britt Hedman, Ph.D., is a Professor at SSRL. She has ~20 years experience with synchrotron radiation research, in particular x-ray absorption spectroscopy. Her current research interests focus on enzyme active site electronic and geometric structure using ligand and metal XAS.

Daniel Herschlag, Ph.D. is a Professor of Biochemistry at Stanford University. The general goal of his research is to understand the fundamental properties and behavior of biological macromolecules. He has special interest in the folding and catalytic properties of RNA, the catalytic properties of protein enzymes, and comparisons between these distinct classes of functional macromolecules.

Keith Hodgson, Ph.D., is the Howard H. and Jessie T. Watkins Stanford University Professor of Chemistry and SSRL Director. He is a pioneer in synchrotron-based biological research: performed the world's first SR protein crystal diffraction measurements; explored anomalous dispersion in what later became known as MAD; developed XAS for structural biology; and made early seminal contributions to biological SAXS.

Kelly Lee, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Molecular Biology & Center for Integrative Molecular Biosciences at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Within the lab of Dr. John E. Johnson and in collaboration with Dr. Hiro Tsuruta (SSRL), he has applied solution X-ray scattering methods to study large-scale conformational changes involved in virus assembly and maturation.

Joe R. Luft is a Research Scientist at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute in Buffalo, New York. His research interests focus on developing a better understanding of macromolecular crystallization and using this knowledge to formulate effective and efficient crystallization methods.

Irimpan Mathews, Ph.D., is a Staff Scientist at SSRL. Research interests include analysis of structure-function relationships in proteins and structure-based drug discovery.

Thomas A. Rabedeau, Ph.D., heads the beam line development group at SSRL, and is an expert in optics design and the development of new beam line facilities. He has a scientific interest and background in x-ray scattering and materials science.

John J. Rehr, Ph.D. is Professor at Department of Physics, University of Washington, and is also a Consulting Professor at Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory. His research specialties are in condensed matter theory, with an emphasis on computational techniques. His major research interests at present include theories of x-ray spectra and real space electronic structure. His group at UW is especially known for the development of x-ray spectroscopy and electronic structure codes, which are used in research laboratories worldwide.

Robert A. Scott, Ph.D., is Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Center for Metalloenzyme Studies, University of Georgia. He has nearly 25 years of experience in the application of x-ray absorption spectroscopy to biological systems. Recent emphasis is on metal sensor and DNA-binding proteins involved in transcription and (metallo) regulation.

Pappannan Thiyagarajan, Ph.D., is a Senior Physicist at the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source Division, Argonne National Laboratory, where he manages a world-class SANS instruments for the user program. In addition, through collaboration with scientists in the Chemistry Division, he has developed a SAXS instrument at the Advanced Photon Source for time-resolved and anomalous SAXS applications. His research areas include protein/RNA folding pathways, kinetics, and phase behavior for block copolymers. He trains postdocs in the application of SANS and time-resolved SAXS in condensed matter research.

Jill Trewhella, Ph.D., is a Director of Special Projects, Associate to the Vice President for Research, and Research Professor of Chemistry at University of Utah. Her scientific interest and expertise focus on understanding the structural and molecular biology of calcium-dependent signaling, and she has extensive background in the application of small-angle x-ray scattering to this and other biological systems.

Helmut Wiedemann, Ph.D., is Professor of Applied Physics and of SSRL. His research interests include developments in theoretical and experimental accelerator physics, particle sources, linear accelerators, storage rings, and synchrotron radiation sources. He has special interest in developing high brightness light sources at short pulse duration with specific goals to produce femto second electron pulses and convert them to a tunable source of femto second, coherent light pulses to be used for fundamental research and for particle acceleration.

William I. Weis, Ph.D., is a Professor of Structural Biology, of Molecular and Cellular Physiology and of SSRL, and Director of the Biophysics Program at Stanford University. Research interests include cell membrane recognition, targeting, and adhesion processes studied by crystallographic structure determination and physical biochemistry.

Vittal Yachandra, Ph.D., is a Staff Scientist at the Structural Biology Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research focuses on understanding the mechanism of water oxidation in photosystem II by using a combination of XAS, EPR, and FTIR spectroscopy.

Students

Ryan Boysen, Montana State University

Mary Corbett, Stanford University

Per Elias, Stanford University/Gothenburg

Yisong Guo, University of California, Davis

William Chorng-Woei Hwang, Burnham Institute

Stephanie Kernaghan, University of Calgary

Tyler Korman, University of California, Irvine

Ae-Ran Kwon, Stanford University

Ting Wai Lee, University of Alberta

Yaqiong Lin, Burnham Institute

Heshu Lu, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Rachel Marion, University of California, San Francisco

Michael Matho, Burnham Institute

John Purden, University of California, Irvine

David Schwab, Montana State University

Elena Slonkina, Stanford University

Peter Smith, University of California, Irvine

Yuichiro Takagi, Stanford University

Dunja Urosev, University of British Columbia

Shuangding Wu, Burnham Institute

Makoto Yamata, Stanford University

Zhicheng Zhang, Washington State University