Course syllabus for BIOC 530 section on X-ray Crystallography 2019

This page is http://skuld.bmsc.washington.edu/~merritt/bc530
Date      Lecture On-line Material
25 Sep
Why X-rays? Why Crystals?
• Bragg's Law
• What's in a crystal?
space group symmetry, non-crystallographic symmetry, impossible symmetry
• Practical Details
growing crystals, sample preparation,
X-ray sources, data collection
Crystals
Bragg's Law (Wikipedia page) (java applet)
Penrose Tilings and the 2011 Nobel Prize
Crystal Growth 101 (PDF)
Phase Diagrams - theory of crystallization
Synchrotron Radiation Videos
What's a Synchrotron?
Student Data Collection Trip to APS
Students stay home - robot does the work
27 Sep
Reciprocal Space ⇔ Real Space
• Fourier Transforms
• Point A - Experimental data (Reciprocal Space)
• Point B - Electron density maps (Real Space)
• How to get from point A to point B?
 
The Phase Problem
We only measured half of what we needed?!!
 
Structure Determination - Solving the Phase Problem
Molecular Replacement
Other methods (brief overview only)

Kevin Cowtan's Book of Fourier
Fourier Series in 1D
Java applet
non-Java applet
Fourier Series in 2D
Structure Factor Tutorial
 

Ways to solve the Phase Problem
X-ray Anomalous Scattering

30 Sep
What you can see in an electron density map
Strengths and Limitations of Crystallography
 
Difference Fourier Maps
Finding the missing piecese
Ligands / Active Sites / Drug Design
 
Model-building - what goes in, what comes out
How to refine a model
How not to refine a model



Example of fitting a ligand to difference density
23 Oct
How to judge the quality of a crystal structure
• Criteria
• Validation tools
 
Where to find a crystal structure
www.rcsb.org
 
Frontiers of Crystallography
• Nanocrystals and femtosecond experiments
Validation Criteria
The geometry of basic protein elements
Braille for Pugilists Essay from 20 years ago but still good reading
Validation Tools
Molprobity
wwPDB Validation Reports
PDB Redux (a.k.a. PDB REDO)
Cool Stuff
Free Electron Laser (Stanford) (Youtube video)

Class Notes

2019 class notes (PDF) (updated 10 Dec 2019)

Homework Assignments (Email me if you have questions)

Part 1 (lectures 1 - 3) and Part 2 (lecture 4) will be available on the class web site.

Links to on-line material from Crystallography courses taught elsewhere

Contact

Ethan A Merritt (HSB 428b) merritt@u.washington.edu