Structural and Computational Biology

The Unit currently consists of 12 groups covering a broad methodological spectrum that allows tackling problems at different ranges of spatial and temporal resolution from single amino acids to organismal communities and ecosystems in line with EMBL’s current scientific programme ‘Molecules to Ecosystems’. 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, next generation sequencing and cell biology approaches complement these structural biology activities enabling new research directions. Coordinated experimental activities are synergistic to a large computational biology programme, 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. Beyond its respective core technologies, each group reaches out into different areas. 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 provides access to high-throughput crystallisation, cryo-EM and NMR instrumentation.

The SCB Unit is very well equipped for experimental and computational work. Experimental facilities include: crystallisation robot and automated crystal visualisation; 800 MHz and 700 MHz NMR spectrometers; several transmission cryo-electron microscopes, including two Titan Krios and one Talos Arctica 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, high-throughput mass spectrometry for metabolomics, metabolic imaging, biophysical characterization, 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 >10.000 CPU cores and petabytes of storage.