Structural and Computational Biology

The unit currently consists of 14 groups covering a broad methodological spectrum that allows tackling problems at different ranges of spatial and temporal resolution from single amino acid side chain conformations to organismal communities. Molecular structures and dynamic information obtained by X-ray crystallography, NMR and high-resolution single-particle electron microscopy are integrated into the cellular context by electron tomography and correlated light microscopy. Dedicated large scale biochemistry, proteomics, metabolomics, chemical biology, biophysics, and cell biology approaches complement these structural biology activities enabling new research directions. These coordinated experimental activities (8 groups) are synergistic to a large computational biology programme (6 groups), which integrates the different information layers to be able to work towards comprehensive descriptions of biological functions at different spatial scales.

Within the Unit, there is a continuing interplay between groups with expertise in different methodologies. This reflects our belief that a combination of structural and functional studies is the most rewarding route to an understanding of the molecular basis of biological function, and that computational biology is essential to integrate the variety of tools and heterogeneous data into a comprehensive spatial and temporal description of biological processes. Along those lines, groups in the Unit pursue a few common large projects. For example, several groups contribute to the characterisation of the thermophilic fungus Chaetomium thermophilum, a model organism for structural biology, to understand its molecular networks and the molecular and cellular principles for eukaryotic thermophily.

Beyond its respective core technologies in structural and computational biology, each group reaches out into different areas, for example, there is considerable expertise in proteomics, metabolomics and next generation sequencing. In addition, several groups based in other Units have shared appointments with the Unit. Several service activities are setup around major technologies, for example the Unit serves as hub for bioinformatics coordination across all EMBL Heidelberg research groups, provides access to high-throughput crystallisation, cryo-EM and NMR instrumentation, and engages in the organisation of EMBL-wide facilities and computational biology centres.

The SCB Unit is very well equipped for experimental and computational work. Experimental facilities include: crystallisation robot and automated crystal visualisation; rotating anode and X-ray detector; 800 MHz, 700 MHz, 600 MHz and 500 MHz NMR spectrometers; several transmission cryo-electron microscopes, including Titan Krios, Talos Arctica and Polara microscopes equipped with direct detectors; and a focused-ion-beam milling and scanning electron microscope (FIB/SEM). The Unit also has facilities for single-molecule light microscopy, metabolic imaging, isothermal calorimetry, circular dichroism, static and dynamic light scattering and analytical ultracentrifugation, as well as for large-scale growth of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. The computing environment offers access to considerable computing resources including an in-house cluster with 6000 CPU cores and petabytes of storage, whereby large central and distributed resources are conveniently networked.