Yes, the extra “g” was intentional. You see, 2014 is the International Year of Crystallography declared by the United Nations. So, Crystallographers are “Bragg”ing about it! [You see what I did there? 🙂 ]
In this month’s issue (February 2014) of Biophysical Journal, the biophysicist couple Prof. Jane RIchardson and David Richardson came out with an article that commemorates this special year. The number 54 gains value here.
- In this issue they highlight 54 protein structures that basically, as they put it, “illuminated” the field of biophysics.
- The number 54 also denotes the number of years since the structure of myoglobin was solved.
- Additionally, If you wanted a year long celebration, you need at least one structure solved by X-ray crystallography per week. So, you can look at one molecular structure at a time and marvel at it. (As a bonus, you get two more.)
As I read the article, I was squeeing with delight, as it had hand drawn pictures of the earliest solved structures! Those pictures definitely upped the oomph factor for these proteins. The best part is this article is open access. So, I can make a slideshow of these structures! Lo and Behold!
If you want to add some unique information about any of these proteins, look out for the list to be available in WIkipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biophysics#New_articles
Wait, that’s NOT all. If you go to IYCR2014 website, there is tons of information there. For example, if you go to events, you can look at the year long celebrations happening around the world.
If you point your browser to http://www.iycr2014.org/learn/educational-materials you will find a good list of things about crystallography one can learn about!
References:
- http://www.iycr2014.org/
- Jane S. Richardson and David C. Richardson (2014). Biophysical Highlights from 54 Years of Macromolecular Crystallography Biophysical Journal, 106 (3), 510-525 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2014.01.001
Getting to know Structural Bioinformatics 