Department of Energy—Office of Biological & Environmental Research

U.S. Department of EnergyOffice of Science

Office of Biological & Environmental Research

Support for Structural Biology at Synchrotrons

Presentation for the Protein Society

July 26, 1999

Roland F. Hirsch

Department of Energy—Office of Biological & Environmental Research

MISSION IN STRUCTURAL MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

• OBER has for 50+ years been responsible for research on health effects of radiation—this research has become more and more oriented to molecular understanding of health effects

• OBER structural biology program serves as an interface between developers of major user facilities and the biomedical research community

• OBER is guided by formal and informal input from the structural biology community:

• Advisory committee reports• BioSync reports• Synchrotron user groups• Professional society recommendations

Department of Energy—Office of Biological & Environmental Research

PROGRAM ACTIVITIES DURING THE 1990S

• Funded new stations for structural biology at all DOE synchrotrons

• Funded laboratory/office space for structural biology users at all DOE synchrotrons

• Supported detector research leading to two commercially successful CCD designs (Princeton/Cornell and Argonne) for crystallography

• Upgraded computer systems at NSLS and SSRL for optimum management and transfer of large amounts of data by visiting scientists

• Increased funding of beamline operations from $1 million to $7 million annually

Department of Energy—Office of Biological & Environmental Research

CURRENT FUNDING OF STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY

Facility Development—$3 million*

Facility Operation—$8 million

Facility Equipment Upgrades—$1.5 million

Instrumentation Research—$2 million

Biological Research—$7 million

Computational Structural Biology—$3.5 million

Database Development and Operation—$1 million

* Primarily neutron facility development in Fiscal Year 1999

Department of Energy—Office of Biological & Environmental Research

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

Near term:

• Maintain full operating support for existing OBER beamlines at the four doe synchrotrons, in coordination with other agencies

• Provide adequate funding for equipment replacement/upgrading ($250,000/beamline/year)

• Sponsor research into next generation of detectors

Long term:

• Develop additional beamlines as warranted by community needs

• Evaluate new technologies proposed by physics community for relevance to experimental structural molecular biology