Biological crystallography project receives €10m grant

A project to create a common platform throughout Europe for researchers in the field of biological crystallography is underway thanks to a grant of €10m from the EU's 6th Framework Programme (FP6).

The BIOXHIT (Biocrystallography on a Highly Integrated Technology Platform) project, which runs until 2006, plans to integrate and further develop the best of current technologies at major European centres for research in structural biology, weaving them into a single standardised platform that will combine a strongly focused research programme with networking, training and mobility of staff under a single and efficient management structure.

Biological crystallography aims to create precise, three-dimensional 'architectural' models of biological molecules, without which it is almost impossible to understand biological processes or to design new drugs that will affect their functions. The most common method for obtaining these models is to bombard crystallised proteins with high-powered X-rays generated at huge synchrotron facilities.

'This grant will support the development and integration of the best technology, and spread this across all sites,' said Dr Kim Henrick of the European Bioinformatic Institute. 'An immediate effect of BIOXHIT will be a significant reduction in the time needed to obtain a structure, with robots able to perform tasks automatically, quickly, and at a consistently high level of precision. The project also calls for improvements in: the process by which samples are handled, the equipment needed to detect X-ray patterns, and the computers and software needed to model structures.'