X-ray Free Electron Lasers in Structural Biology – From “Slow” to “Ultrafast”

Keith Hodgson, Department of Chemistry, Stanford University, California, USA

Synchrotron radiation has enabled major discoveries in structural biology over the past 4 decades.  Technology developments and innovations have been essential in making this possible, most notably in source characteristics, robotics, software control and detectors.  Over the past few years, a revolutionary new x-ray light source, the LCLS x-ray free electron laser at SLAC, has opened completely new and potentially transformational new lines of research where the unique properties of the LCLS x-rays (fsec pulses, extraordinary peak brightness and coherence) are enabling experiments not feasible with ‘conventional’ synchrotron sources.  This lecture will briefly introduce the XFELs and LCLS, and provide an overview of recent developments and pioneering research in the area of structural biology.



The operation of SSRL and LCLS at SLAC is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences and support in structural biology R&D is provided by DOE Office of Biological Research and the National Institutes of Health Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS).