Fagpressenytt

In biochemistry lectures and more often now in cell biology and other related disciplines we show the 3D structures of the biomolecules that are relevant to understanding the subject we are presenting. Visualization of the atomic structure of these fascinating biomolecules facilitates the understanding of their function, flexibility and intermolecular interactions in living cells and organisms. However, except for the remarkable work of pioneers in X-ray crystallography, NMR and structural bioinformatics, biochemistry in Norway has traditionally not been focused much on structural biology. This is very different to most molecular biology, biochemical and biomedicine departments and research institutions in Europe and USA. As an example, at EMBL two out of five outstations - Grenoble and Hamburg - are dedicated to structural biology.

The situation is, however, about to change for Norwegian structural biology. The last couple of years the infrastructure program from the Research Council of Norway (RCN) has provided crucial funds to the Norwegian Macromolecular Crystallography Consortium (NORCRYST;