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EMBL
Hamburg |
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| www.embl-hamburg.de |
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The Hamburg Outstation is situated in one of the most beautiful areas of this Hanseatic city in the northern part of Germany. Hamburg is centred around its harbour, which has a long tradition of overseas trade, and offers a wide variety of cultural activities. In the close vicinity of EMBL, there are diverse neighbourhoods ranging from residential, wealthy suburbs like Blankenese, to areas with a lot of students, entertainment and a multicultural ambience like St. Pauli, Altona and Ottensen.
EMBL Hamburg is located on the site of DESY [German
Synchrotron Research Centre] that provides synchrotron
radiation [SR] through its DORIS positron storage
ring. This radiation is used to study the structure
and function of proteins using state-of-the-art
equipment and methods. The Outstation operates seven
SR beamlines, five of which are dedicated to biocrystallography,
one to small angle X-ray scattering of biological
samples and one to X-ray absorption spectroscopy
[EXAFS]. EMBL Hamburg has a well-established record
for the development of novel, innovative technologies
in biological applications of SR. These started
with the first diffraction and scattering experiments
in molecular structural biology in Hamburg more
than thirty years ago. Later, the first imaging
plate scanner, now standard equipment in any biocrystallographic
laboratory, was developed by the EMBL instrumentation
group, and was subsequently commercialised by the
spin-off company MarResearch. At present, world-leading
software packages for the automation of data interpretation
have been developed and are used internationally
in a large number of projects. One is the ARP/wARP
package that, in its current version, allows automatic
X-ray structure determination with X-ray data higher
than 2.5 Å resolution within a few hours. The other
one is called ATSAS and allows the automatic interpretation
of small angle X-ray scattering data for structural
shape determination.
These research developments
are paralleled by an integrated approach to carry
out scientifically demanding projects in structural
biology. For this, EMBL Hamburg offers facilities
in molecular biology, heterologous expression in
prokaryotic and eukaryotic hosts, protein purification,
biophysical characterisation and crystallisation,
complementing our X-ray data acquisition and processing
infrastructure. Our biological interests include,
inter alia, regulation of transcription and translation,
viral replication, protein-ligand interactions in
signalling proteins and protein kinases, giant muscle
proteins and protein translocation into peroxisomes.
Our activities in small angle X-ray scattering and
EXAFS provide unique opportunities to provide insight,
for instance, into large protein complexes and protein
with metal centres. EMBL Hamburg is one of the nodes
of the European Structural Genomics Project, SPINE.
EMBL is also coordinating a Structural Genomics
consortium targeting 150 genes of Mycobacterium
tuberculosis, by using novel technologies in comparative
proteomics. As part of the latter project a high-throughput
crystallisation facility was installed during 2003.
DESY is planning to dedicate the PETRA ring for
future SR applications at the beginning of 2007
and our aim is to continue to provide world-leading
synchrotron radiation beamline facilities for structural
biology on the PETRA ring during August 2007. |
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