Smart lab, Research department

Innovation Expansion Section - Unit for Biostructural Chemistry

Members

Associate Professor YAMADA Yusuke

Research Activities

Acceleration of life science research by a macromolecular crystallography

Proteins are molecules that control functions in living organisms, and it is extremely important to obtain the atomic structure of proteins to understand their functions. While there are several methods to obtain the atomic structure of proteins, X-ray macromolecular crystallography with synchrotron radiation is characterized by its ability to rapidly obtain high-resolution structures. Therefore, it is expected to be applied to pharmaceutical research, such as Structure Based Drug Design (SBDD), in which the structure of a target protein in complex with hundreds of compounds is analyzed and new drugs are rationally designed based on the binding of those compounds to the protein. In order to realize research such as SBDD, it is necessary to stably acquire high-quality experimental data (X-ray diffraction intensity data) from a large amount of samples (crystals), which requires highly automated measurement technology. Automation and efficient management of the analysis of the acquired data are also important, and we are developing these technologies in an integrated manner. We are also developing peripheral technologies related to macromolecular crystallography such as protein crystallization.