The Change Mariner

Synchrotron Machines Illuminate Small World

Mercury News:

Then they realized the light could be put to good use. Now dozens of synchrotron machines have been built around the world for the sole purpose of generating light, including X-rays 10 billion times brighter than those from a conventional X-ray machine.

Even before the upgrade, the machine was being used by 1,800 scientists from around the world, more than 100 universities and companies such as IBM, Genentech, Chiron and Roche Pharmaceuticals, said SLAC Director Jonathan Dorfan. Now it will be expanded and automated so scientists can run their experiments from their home laboratories.

One of the main goals is determining the structures of proteins -- the workhorse molecules that carry out most of the functions of living cells. Once this structure is understood, researchers can sometimes develop drugs that interact with a protein in a way that prevents or limits disease.

This is an expanding area of science, said John Norvell of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. In 1972, he said, the structures of only 16 proteins were known; today there are more than 20,000, and about two-thirds of them are mapped out using synchrotrons.