MIT receives $7.5 million to enhance structural biology research
MIT will receive a $2.5 million gift from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation to help develop a state-of-the-art cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-Em) center to be housed at the MIT.nano facility. In addition, the Institute also received an anonymous donation of $5 million to support the purchase of a synergistic high-resolution cryo-EM instrument. Cryo-EM is fast outpacing traditional X-ray crystallography techniques for understanding large biological structures. In X-ray crystallography, X-rays are scattered through a crystallized protein, and the resulting diffraction pattern allows scientists to determine the position of atoms in a biomolecule. Though this technique has resulted in major scientific discoveries, including DNA’s double helix structure, it also has limitations. Some marcomolecules and proteins don’t easily crystallize and, if the molecules can be crystallized, they are locked into a single conformation. With cryo-EM, researchers can look at protein structures in many different conformations and gain better insight into the protein’s mechanisms — leading...