Welcome To The Garman Group Website
We are part of the Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics at the University of Oxford.
About Us
Our research focuses on developing methods for macromolecular crystallography (MX) to enable problems not previously accessible to structure solution to be tackled. This work currently includes studies on 100K and room temperature (RT) radiation damage and the analysis of liquid and crystalline samples by the tehnique of microPIXE (microbeam Proton Induced X-ray Emission). The group also solve protein structures, most recently of arylamine N-acetyltransferase from Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
For more information about the group please visit our "People" page here
Above is the cover of the special issue of the Journal of Synchrotron Radiation on X-ray Radiation Damage to Biological Crystalline Samples (March 2015). The image on the lower right shows the specific damage distribution (red and blue spheres) of the irradiated baterial protein-DNA complex CEsp1396I/DNA. The work and figure was produced by Charlie Bury.
Introduction to Crystallography
For an introduction into the method of X-ray crystallography please see this animation which Elspeth and Jonny helped to produce with Oxford Sparks.
The British Crystallographic Association
The British Crystallographic Association (BCA) is the UK national association for crystallograpy. It's main aims are the promotion of crystallography in research and the education of young people and others in the methods, possibilities and achievements of crystallographic science. can visit the website here.
Recent Activity
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Special Issue of JSR - In March 2015 a special issue of the Journal of Synchrotron Radiation on X-ray Radiation Damage to Biological Crystalline Samples was published. This issue was edited by Elspeth and Martin Weik and features papers by Charlie Bury and Garman Group Alumnus Markus Gerstel.
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Elspeth in puerto Rico - The BioXFEL conference took place in Puerto Rico this year and Elspeth was in attendance. She also managed to visit two crystallography students at the University of Puerto Rico.
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Why Science? Why Maths? - Jonny took part in the event at Cheney School, delievering hands on crystallography activities and giving a presentation about mathematics in crystallography.
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RADDOSE-3D source code released - The source code for RADDOSE-3D has now been publicly released and can be acessed on Github. Furthermore the release available on the raddo.se website has been updated with several improvments and fixes.
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CCP4 Study Weekend - The Garman group attended the CCP4 study weekend which took place on the 7th -9th January on advances in experimental phasing.
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Elspeth wins Humanitarian award - The Women's International Film and Television Showcase (WIFTS) has awarded Elspeth for her contributions to X-ray crystallography.
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Presentation at the Royal Albert Hall - The Illuminating Atoms exhibition features photographs by Max Alexander showcasing the work of crystallographers. Elspeth featured at the event giving a talk about how crystallography has changed the world.
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Publication in Science - Elspeth and Garman Group alumnus, Oliver Zeldin, are co-authors on a recent publication in Science.
Group Head
Prof. Elspeth Garman
My group are interested in the development and optimisation of data collection techniques for structural biology, and in particular for macromolecular crystallography (MX). My background is in Physics, so we tend to apply thinking born of physics to our research. After a year teaching in a Secondary School in Swaziland, Southern Africa , I obtained a B.Sc. in Physics at Durham University and then a Doctorate in Experimental Nuclear Physics at Oxford University in 1980. After working as a Research Officer for 7 years in the Nuclear Physics Department in Oxford, I moved to the Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics in 1987 to look after their newly acquired electronic multi-wire X-ray detector. Since then, I have worked on a variety of problems, and among them has been optimising, understanding and disseminating cryo-crystallographic techniques, and on the physics and chemistry of radiation damage in MX. The group’s latest work is to enable 3-D modelling of the dose absorbed by a protein crystal for any beam conditions and a variety of data collection strategies. This can be found at www.raddo.se.
Postdoctoral fellows
Helena Taberman
I obtained my BSc and MSc in Chemistry continuing to PhD in Structural biology at the University of Eastern Finland. With a grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation to work on ‘overcoming challenges of radiation damage in macromolecular complexes at the atomic level’ I will carry out systematic studies on radiation damage to protein, DNA, protein/DNA and protein/RNA crystals during structure determination by X-ray diffraction at cryo- and room temperatures. The new electron density loss pipeline, RIDL, will be used to calculate per-atom metrics to quantify the sensitivity to specific damage. Secondly, the newly established metric, Bdamage, will be used to search for incorrect metal assignments in the PDB followed by measuring some of these proteins using the microPIXE method to unambiguously identify the metals. The results will be then used to analyse if the re-identification of the metal affects the assumed function of the chosen proteins. The third aim of the project is to further improve RADDOSE-3D, which allows the radiation dose distribution during a diffraction experiment to be calculated with both time and space resolution.
- Joined the group in January 2017
Research assistant
Joshua Dickerson — Improving RADDOSE-3D
I am making improvements to the group’s dose calculation software, RADDOSE-3D. My main focus is on improving the accuracy of the calculated dose by implementing a fluorescent X-ray escape model and improving and extending the current photoelectron escape model.
- Joined the group in November 2017
2023
Raimond B. G. Ravelli (25 March 1968-30 June 2023).
Acta Cryst. (2023) D79, 866-870
https://journals.iucr.org/d/issues/2023/09/00/me6242/me6242.pdf
Radiation damage to biological macromolecules.
Current Opinion in Structural Biology (2023) 82:10266
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959440X23001367
AlphaFold and the future of structural biology.
Acta Cryst (2023) D79, 556-558
https://journals.iucr.org/d/issues/2023/07/00/me6231/me6231.pdf
The CCP4 suite: integrative software for macromolecular crystallography
Acta Cryst. D (2023) 79, 449-461
https://journals.iucr.org/d/issues/2023/06/00/ai5011/ai5011.pdf
The identification and quantitation of metal atoms in proteins using microPIXE: a critical evaluation.
Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, B. (2023) 540, 237-245.
30 years of Acta D.
Acta Cryst. (2023). D79, 95-97
https://journals.iucr.org/d/issues/2023/02/00/me6214/me6214.pdf
2022
Variability in X-ray induced effects in [Rh(COD)Cl]2 with changing experimental parameters.
Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. (2022) DOI: 10.1039/d2cp03928a
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/cp/d2cp03928a
Quantifying radiation damage in the Protein Data Bank.
Nature Communications (2022) 13:1314- 1325 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28934-0 | ww.nature.com/naturecommunications
Resolving the subtle details of human DNA alkyltransferase lesion search and repair mechanism by single molecule studies
PNAS 119 (11) e2116218119 | https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2116218119
Heterotypic interactions drive antibody synergy against a malaria vaccine candidate.
Nature Communications (2022) 13: 933 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28601-4
High-resolution mapping of metal ions reveals principles of surface layer assembly in Caulobacter crescentus bacteria
Structure (2022) 30, 215-228
2021
Submission of structural biology data for review purposes.
Acta Cryst.D (2021) 77, 1477-1478. and in Acta Cryst.F, (2021). 77, 435-436
Radiation Damage in biological samples: still a pertinent issue
Journal of Synchrotron Radiation, (2021), 75, 1278-1283.
Structural and Electronic Effects of X-ray Irradiation on Prototypical [M(COD)Cl]2 Catalysts
J Phys Chem A (2021) online 23/8/21 10.1021/acs.jpca.1c05759, 125, 7473-7488
Zinc determines dynamical properties and aggregation kinetics of human insulin
Biophysical Journal (2021) 120, 1-13.
Doses for experiments with microbeams and microcrystals: Monte Carlo simulations in RADDOSE-3D.
Protein Science (2021) 30, 8-19
2020
Protein Science (2020) Published on-line July 2020
J. Appl. Cryst. (2020). 53, 549–560
PNAS (2020)
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 1, 185-197 On-line Dec 13 2019
2019
J Biological Chemistry 294(45):17117-17130
Nature Microbiology (2019) 4, 2074–2081
Special Issue on Biophysics and Structural Biology at Synchrotrons Biophys Rev (2019) 11: 525-528
Special Issue on Biophysics and Structural Biology at Synchrotrons
Special Issue on Biophysics and Structural Biology at Synchrotrons
J Synchrotron Radiation 26, 907–911
J Synchrotron Radiation 26, 931–944
J Synchrotron Radiation 26, 998–1009
IUCrJ 6, 703–713
J Synchrotron Radiation 26, 922–930
Journal of Applied Crystallography 52, 495-497
Acta Cryst. D 75, 455-457
Acta Cryst. F 75, 321-323
IUCrJ 6, 341-343
2018
J. Appl. Cryst. (2018) in press.
Protein Crystallography: Challenges and Practical Solutions (2018) Ch.4, Royal Society of Chemistry, in press.
Crystals (2018) 8, 157; doi:10.3390/cryst8040157
J, Appl. Cryst. (2018) 51, 552-559.
Protein Science (2018) 27, 217-228.
2017
Radiation Damage in Macromolecular Crystallography
Protein Crystallography: Methods in Molecular Biology (2017) Volume 1607, Ch. 20, pp. 467-489.
X-ray radiation damage to biological macromolecules: further insights
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2017) 24, 1-6.
OH cleavage from tyrosine: debunking a myth
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2017) 24, 7-18.
Development of tools to automate quantitative analysis of radiation damage in SAXS experiments
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2017) 24, 63-72.
Plant Cysteine Oxidases are Dioxygenases that Directly Enable Arginyl Transferase-Catalyzed Arginylation of N-End Rule Targets
Nature Communications (2017) doi:10.1038/ncomms14690
"To cross-seed or not to cross-seed": a pilot study using metallo-β-lactamases
Crystal Growth and Design (2017) 17, 913-924.
2016
The topology, structure and PE interaction of LITAF underpin a Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1C
BMC Biology (2016) 14, 109-130.
An Overview of Heavy Atom Derivatization of Protein Crystals
Acta Cryst. D (2016) 72, 303-318.
X-ray Crystal Structure Analysis of Magnetically Oriented Microcrystals of Lysozyme at 1.8 Å Resolution
J. Appl. Cryst. (2016) 49, 457-461.
RNA protects a nucleoprotein complex against radiation damage
Acta Cryst. D (2016) 72, 648-657
Entry for Professor Dame Louise N. Johnson for the National Dictionary of Biography
OUP Jan (2016)
Radiation damage within nucleoprotein complexes studied by macromolecular X-ray crystallography
Radiat. Phys. Chem. (2016) 128, 118-125
2015
Identifying and quantifying radiation damage at the atomic level
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2015) 22, 201-212.
Radiation Damage in Macromolecule Crystallography
Synchrotron Radiation News (2015) 28, 15-19.
Radiation damage to nucleoprotein complexes in macromolecular crystallography J. Synchrotron Rad. (2015) 22, 213-224.
Radiation damage to macromolecules: kill or cure?
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2015) 22, 195-200.
Antiviral adhesion molecular mechanisms for influenza: W.G. Laver’s lifetime obsession.
Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2015) London, Ser. B 370 2014003.
2014
A complex iron-calcium cofactor catalyzing phosphotransfer chemistry
Science (2014) 345 (6201): 1170-1173.
VARP Is Recruited on to Endosomes by Direct Interaction with Retromer, Where Together They Function in Export to the Cell Surface
Developmental Cell (2014) 29, 591-606.
Open access. Available here
Developments in X-ray Crystallographic Structure Determination of Biological Macromolecules
Science (2014) 34, 1102-1108
For link to the full text click here
For link to the full text as a pdf click here.
2013
Predicting the X-ray lifetime of protein crystals
PNAS (2013), on-line 2/12/13 here: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/11/27/1315879110
RADDOSE-3D: time- and space-resolved modeling of dose in macromolecular crystallography
J. Appl. Cryst. (2013) 46, 1225-1230.
Insights into the mechanism of X-ray induced disulfide bond cleavage in lysozyme crystals based on EPR, optical absorption, and X-ray diffraction studies
Acta Cryst. D (2013) 69, 2381-2394.
Radiation Damage in Macromolecular Crystallography: What Is It and Why Do We Care?
Methods for Biomolecular Crystallography NATO Science for Peace and Security Series A: Chemistry and Biology 2013, pp 69-77.
Structure of arylamine N-acetyltransferase from M. tuberculosis determined by cross-seeding with homologous protein from M. marinum: Triumph over Adversity.
Acta Cryst. D (2013) 69, 1433-1446.
Optimizing the spatial distribution of dose in X-ray macromolecular crystallography
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2013) 20, 49-57.
To scavenge or not to scavenge, that is STILL the question
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2013) 20, 23-36.
Radiation damage to biological macromolecules: some answers and more questions
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2013) 20, 1-6.
Elemental Analysis of Proteins by Proton Induced X-ray Emission (microPIXE)
Advancing Methods for Biomolecular Crystallography NATO Science for Peace and Security Series A: Chemistry and Biology 2013, pp 79-89.
2012
Piperidinols That Show Anti-Tubercular Activity as Inhibitors of Arylamine N-Acetyltransferase: An Essential Enzyme for Mycobacterial Survival Inside Macrophages
PLoS ONE 7(12): e52790.
Radiation Damage
International Tables for Crystallography (2012) Volume F. (Ch. 10.3 pp. 256-261)
Structural changes caused by radiation-induced reduction and radiolysis: the effect of X-ray absorbed dose in a fungal multicopper oxidase
Acta Cryst. (2012) D68, 564-577.
Multigrain crystallography
Z. Kristallogr. (2012) 227, 63–78.
2011
Simultaneous X-ray diffraction from multiple single crystals of Macromolecules
Acta Cryst. (2011) D67, 608–618.
Macromolecular crystallography radiation damage research: what's new?
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2011) 18, 313-317
Effective scavenging at cryotemperatures: further increasing the dose tolerance of protein crystals.
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2011) 18, 346-357
2010
Probing the architecture of the Mycobacterium marinum Arylamine N-Acetyltransferase active site
Protein and Cell (2010) 1(4) 384-392.
Experimental Phasing and Radiation Damage
Acta Cryst. (2010) D66, Preface to Issue.
Radiation damage in macromolecular crystallography: what is it and why should we care?
Acta Cryst. (2010) D66, 339-351.
Know your dose: RADDOSE
Acta Cryst. (2010). D66, 381-388.
2009
Response to Krumrey's Comments on 'Determination of X-ray flux using silicon pin diodes by Robin L. Owen, James M. Holton, Clemens Schulze-Briese, & Elspeth F. Garman. Journal of Synchrotron Radiation (2009) 16, 143-151'.
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2009) 16, 691-692.
Radiation Damage in Protein Crystals Examined Under Various Conditions by Different Methods
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2009) 16, 129-132
Determination of X-ray flux using silicon pin diodes
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2009) 16, 143-151
Absorbed dose calculations for macromolecular crystals: improvements to RADDOSE
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2009) 16, 152-162
Colouring Cryo-Cooled Crystals: on-line microspectrophotometry
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2009) 16, 163-172
Room temperature scavengers for MX: increased lifetimes and modified dose dependence of the intensity decay
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2009) 16, 205-216
Mechanism for the Hydrolysis of a Sulfur-Sulfur Bond Based on the Crystal Structure of the Thiosulfohydrolase SoxB
J. Biol. Chem. (2009) 284, 21707-21718
Crystal handling for cryogenic data collection
Crystallisation of Proteins: Techniques, strategies and Tips. A LaboratoryManual.
Editor Terese Bergfors. Publisher: International University Line, La Jolla, U.S.A. 1999
ISBN 0-9636817-5-3.
2008
The binding of haem and zinc in the 1.9 Å X-ray structure of Escherichia coli bacterioferritin
Journal Biological Inorganic Chemistry (2009) e-pub 2008, 14(2), 201-207
The crystal structure of the Escherichia coli RNase apoprotein and a mechanism for RNA degradation.
Structure (2008) 16, 1238-1244
Crystal structures of fibronectin-binding sites from Staphylococcus aureus FnBPA in complex with fibronectin domains.
Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci(2008) 105, 12254-12258
Macromolecular cryo-crystallography
Evolving Methods for Macromolecular Crystallography: The Structural Path to the Understanding of the Mechanism of Action of CBRN Agents (NATO Science Series II: Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry)
Editors: Randy J. Read, Joel L. Sussman.Publisher: Springer, March 1, 2008
ISBN 1402063156.
2007
Observation of Decreased Radiation Damage at Higher Dose Rates in Room Temperature Protein Crystallography
Structure (2007) 15, 1531-1541
The solution and crystal structures of a module pair from the Staphylococcus aureus-binding site of human fibronectin - a tale with a twist
JMB (2007) 368, 833-844
A previously unobserved conformation for the human Pex5p receptor suggests roles for intrinsic flexibility and rigid domain motions in ligand binding
BMC Structural Biology (2007) 7, 24-36
Progress in research into radiation damage in cryo-cooled macromolecular crystals
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2007) 14, 1-3
Radioprotectant screening for cryocrystallography.
J. Synchrotron Rad. (2007) 14, 73-83
X-ray data collection from macromolecular crystals
Methods in Molecular Biology.
Editor Sylvie Doublié.
The Humana Press, NJ, USA. pages 63-94 (2007)
Cryocrystallography: practice and optimisation.
Methods in Molecular Biology.
Editor Sylvie Doublié.
The Humana Press, NJ, USA. pages 1-18 (2007)
Crystal Structure and Function of the Zinc Uptake Regulator FurB from Mycobacterium tuberculosis
JBC (2007) 282, 9914-9922
Macromolecular Cryo-crystallography
Editors R.J. Read and J.L. Sussman
Evolving Methods for Macromolecular Crystallography, 25-40. 2007. Springer.
The identification of a new contaminant-free sample support film for microPIXE analysis.
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Particle Induced X-ray Emission and its Analytical Applications ISBN 9789703251155 Eds. J.Miranda, J.L.Ruvalcaba-Sil and OG. De Lucio, Published by UNAM, Mexico 2007
2006
The Structure of Frataxin Oligomers Reveal the Mechanism for the Delivery and Detoxification of Iron.
Structure (2006) 14, 1535-1546
Tailor made drugs, if used wisely, will save lives
Commentary, London Evening Standard 24/2/06
Radiation damage in macromolecular cryocrystallography
Current Opinion of Structural Biology (2006) 16, 624-629
HDAC6-p97/VCP controlled polyubiquitin chain turover.
EMBO Journal (2006), 1-10.
The effect of irradiation-induced disorder on the conductivity and critical temperature of the organic superconductor .-(BEDT-TTF)2 Cu(SCN)2.
Phys Rev Letts. (2006) 96,177002.
Experimental determination of the radiation dose limit for cryocooled protein crystals.
PNAS (2006) 103, 4912-4917.
Cryo-cooling and radiation damage in macromolecular crystallography.
Acta Cryst D (2006) 62, 32-47.
2005
"Zn-link": A metal-sharing interface that organizes the quaternarystructure and catalytic site of the endoribonuclease, RNase E.
Biochemistry. (2005) 44, 4667-4675.
Towards an understanding of radiation damage in Cryo-cooled crystals.
JSR (2005), 12, 257-260.
Parameters affecting the X-ray dose absorbed by macromolecular crystals.
JSR (2005), 12, 268-275.
A new method for predetermining the diffraction quality of protein crystals:using SOAP as a selection tool
Acta Cryst. D (2005) 61, 130-140.
Elemental analysis of proteins by microPIXE.
Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology. (2005) 89/2, 173-205.
The Structure, function and inhibition of influenza virus neuraminidase.
Chapter in 'Viral Membrane Proteins: Structure, Function and Drug Design.'
Edited by Wolfgang Fischer.
Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. (2005) Pages 247-267
2004
Temperature Characteristics of crystal storage devices in a CP100 dry shipping Dewar.
J. Appl. Cryst. (2004) 37, 1000-1003.
Twinned or not twinned, that is the question: crystallisation and preliminary crystallgraphic analysis of the 2F13F1 module pair of human fibronectin.
Acta D (2004) 60, 1341-1345.
X-ray absorption by macromolecular crystals: the effects of wavelength andcrystal composition on absorbed dose.
J. Appl. Cryst. (2004) 37, 513-522.
Crystallisation, microPIXE and preliminary crystallographic ananlysis of thecomplex between the third KH domain of hnRNP K and single stranded DNA.
Acta D (2004) 60, 784-787
Controlling Influenza by Inhibiting the Virus's Neuraminidase.
Current Drug Targets (2004) 5
The three-dimensional structure of the N-Acetylglucosamine-6-phosphate Decetylase, NagA, from Bacillus subtilis
Journal of Biological Chemistry 279, 4, 2809-2816
Characterisation Of Thin Support Films For MicroPIXE Analysis Of Metals In iological Materials
Proceedings ofthe 10th International Conference on Particle Induced X-ray Emission and itsAnalytical Applications ISBN 9616303627
Ed. Milos Budnar, Publishedby Institute Josef Stefan, Ljubljana, Slovenia. 2004.pdf
PIXE analysis of single atoms: measuring metal atom concentrations in protein molecules
In 'Proceedings ofthe 10th International Conference on Particle Induced X-ray Emission and itsAnalytical Applications' ISBN 9616303627
Ed. Milos Budnar, Publishedby Institute Josef Stefan, Ljubljana, Slovenia. 2004.pdf
2003
'Cool crystals': Cryocrystallography and Radiation Damage.
Current Opinion of Structural Biology 9, 545-551.
Architecture of a protein central to iron homeostatis: crystal structure and spectroscopic analysis of the ferric uptake regulator.
Molecular Microbiology 47 903-915.
Cryocooling of Macromolecular Crystals: Optimisation Methods.
Methods in Enzymology (2003) 368, 188-216.
Glucocorticoid-like Zn(Cys)4 Zn motifs in BslI restriction endonuclease.
J. Mol. Biol. 334, 595-603.
2002
Investigation of Possible Free Radical Scavengers and Metrics for Radiation Damage in Protein Crystallography.
Journal of Synchrotron Radiation 9, 347-354.
Physical and chemical considerations of damage induced in protein crystals bysynchrotron radiation: a radiation chemical perspective.
Journal of Synchrotron Radiation 9, 329-332.
Radiation damage to crystalline biological molecules: current view.
Journal of Synchrotron Radiation 9, 327-328.
Pandemic influenza: its origin and control.
Microbes and Infection 4,1309-1316.
Blu-Ice and the Distribution Control System: software for data acquisition andinstrument control at macromolecular crystallography beamlines.
Journal of Synchrotron Radiation (2002) bf 9, 401-406.
2001
Modelling heating effects in cryocooled protein crystals
Nuc.Instr, Meth in physics research A 467-468 1380-1383pdf
The Origin and Control of Pandemic Influenza.
Science 293, 1776-1777.pdf
MgADP and 3-Phospholglycerate in open confirmation: New insight into the roleof the nucleotide in domain closure.
J. Mol. Biol 306, 499-511pdf
Macromolecular Cryo-crystallography.
in Methods inMacromolecular Crystallography, D.Turk and L.Johnson (Eds) Nato Science Series.IOS Press 2001. Pages 15-25.
2000
Mutations at critical N-Glycosolation sites reduce tyrosinase activity byaltering folding and quality control
JBC, 275, 8169-9175pdf
A DNA-porphyrin minor groove complex at atomic resolution: The structuralconsequences of porphyrin ruffling
PNAS, 97, 9476-9481pdf
Identification of novel purine and pyrimidine cyclin-dependant kinaseinhibitors with distinct molecular interactions and tumor cell growth inhibitorprofiles.
J.Med.Chem 43(15); 2797-2804.pdf
Limitations inMacromolecular Crystallography due to Radiation Damage.
Synchrotron Radiation Instrumentation. Proceedings of the 11th US National Conference,SLAC, 1999 Editors: P.\ Pianetta, John Arthur, Sean Brennan. ISBN1-56396-941-6. (2000) 215-218
1999
Leaving no element of doubt: analysis of proteins using microPIXE.
Structure 7, R291-299.pdf
Demystifying the Synchrotron Trip: a first time user's guide.
Structure, 7, R111-121.pdf
Recent Biomedical applications of the Oxford Scanning Proton Microprobe.
International Journal of PIXE (1999) 9 199-216.
Crystal handling for cryogenic data collection
Chapter 17. In second edition `Crystallisation of Proteins: Techniquesstrategies and Tips. A Laboratory Manual. Editor: Terese Bergfors. Publisher:International University Line, La Jolla, U.S.A. 1999. ISBN 0-9636817-5-3
Crystallisation for Cryocrystallography.
Chapter17. In `Crystallisation of Proteins: Techniques strategies and Tips. ALaboratory Manual. Publisher: International University Line, La Jolla, U.S.A.1999. ISBN 0-9636817-5-3
1998
Continuous and Discontinuous Changes in the Unit Cell of HIV-1 Reverse Transcriptase Crystals on Dehydration.
Acta Cryst. (1998) D54, 938-953.
The structure of a glycogen phosphorylase glucopyranose spirohydantoin complex at 1.8\A resolution and 100 K: The role of the water structure and its contribution to binding.
Protein Science (1998) 7, 915-927.
1997
Haem Ligand-Switching during catalysis in crystals of a nitrogen cycle Enzyme.
Nature (1997) 389, 406-412
A single sequence change destabilises the influenza virus neuraminidase tetramer.
Virology (1997) 236, 66-75.
Crystal Structure of the DNA Decamer d(CGCAATTGCG) Complexed with the Minor Groove Binding Drug Netropsin.
Biochemistry (1997) 36, 4792-4799.
From phosphorylase to phosphorylase kinase.
Signal Transduction in Health and Disease. Corbin JD, Francis SH (eds) pp. 11-28
1996
Glycerol concentrations required for cryoprotection of 50 typical protein crystallisation solutions.
J.Appl. Cryst. 29, 584-587.
Ternary Complex Crystal Structures of Glycogen Phosphorylase with the Transition State Analogue Nojirimycin Tetrazole and Phosphate in the T and R States.
Biochemistry (1996) 35, 7341-7355.
The structures of Salmonella typhimurium LT2 neuraminidase and its complexes with three inhibitors at high resolution.
J. Mol. Biol. (1996) 259: 264-280.
The structures of Salmonella typhimurium LT2 neuraminidase and its complexes with three inhibitors at high resolution.
J. Mol. Biol. (1996) 259: 264-280.
Modern Methods for rapid X-ray diffraction data collection from crystals of macromolecules.
Ed. M.R. Sanderson. The Humana Press Inc., New Jersey, U.S.A.
Methods in Molecular Biology (1996) Volume 56, pp. 87-126 Physical Methods of Analysis.
1995
The structure of cyclin A contains a tandem duplication of a novel protein fold.
Structure (1995) 3, 1235-1247.
Two structures of the catalytic domain of phosphorylase kinase: an active protein kinase complexed with substrate analogue and product.
Structure (1995) 3, 467-482.
High Resolution Structures of HIV-1 RT from four RT-inhibitor complexes.
Nature Structural Biology. (1995) 2, 293-302.
The crystal structure of P13 suc1, a p34cdc2-interacting cell cycle control protein.
EMBO Journal. (1995) 14 1004-1014.
Expression, Purification and Crystallisation of Phosphorylase Kinase Catalytic Domain.
J. Mol. Biol. (1995) 246, 374-381.
1994
Flash Freezing of Protein crystals: Investigation of Mosaic Spread and Diffraction Limit with Variation of Cryoprotectant Concentration.
J.Appl. Cryst. 27, 1070-1074.
Crystals of HIV-1 Reverse Transcriptase Diffracting to 2.2Å Resolution.
J.Mol.Biol. (1994) 242, 586-588.
Crystal Structure of Vibrio cholerae neuraminidase reveals dual lectin-like domains in addition to the catalytic domain.
Structure (1994) 2:535-544.
'Flu Neuraminidase: the Virus' Achilles heel?
Science and Technology Now. Winter 1994/95. 6, 30-33.
'Flu Neuraminidase: the Virus' Achilles heel?
Today's Life Science (1994) 6, 40-47.
Why we keep catching the 'flu: The Origin and Control of Influenza Pandemics.
Science and Public Affairs. Winter 1994. 44-48.
1993
Crystal structure of a bacterial sialidase (from Salmonella typhimurium LT2) shows the same fold as an influenza neuraminidase.
Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. (1993) 90, 9852-9856.
A design of crystal mounting cell that allows the controlled variation of humidity at the protein crystal during X-ray diffraction.
J.Appl.Cryst. (1993) 26, 465-466.
Crystallization and Preliminary X-ray Studies of Influenza Subtypes N5, N6, N8 and N9.
J.Mol.Biol. (1993) 230, 345-348.
The growth and characterization of crystals of immunodeficiency virus (HIV) reverse transcriptase.
Journal of Crystal Growth (1993) 126, 261-269.
X-ray crystallographic structure of a papain-leupeptin complex.
FEBS (1993) 315, 38-42.
X-ray crystallographic structure of a papain-leupeptin complex.
FEBS (1993) 315, 38-42.
Problematic data collections: give up or persist?
Data Collection and Processing, Proceedings of the CCP4 Study Weekend. DL/SCI/R34 (1993) 123-131.
1992
Purification, Crystallisation and Preliminary Crystallographic Study of Neuraminidase from Vibrio Cholerae and Salmonella Typhimurium LT2.
J. Mol. Biol. (1992) 226, 1287-1290.
Crystal Structure of a Berenil-d(CGCAAATTTGCG) Complex; an example of Drug-DNA recognition based on Sequence-dependent structural features.
J. Mol. Biol. (1992) 226, 481-490.
Crystallization and Preliminary X-ray Study of a Lipase from Pseudomonas Glumae.
J.Mol.Biol. (1992) 224, 281-282.
Structure of Monoclinic Papain at 1.60Å Resolution.
Acta Cryst. (1992) B48, 59-67.
1990
Crystal and solution structures of the oligonucleotide d(ATGCGCAT)2: a combined X-ray and NMR study.
Nucleic Acid Research (1990) 18, 5521-5528.
Crystal Structure of a Berenil-dodecanuleotide Complex: the Role of Water in Sequence Specific Ligand Binding.
EMBO Journal (1990) Vol. 9, 1329-1334.
1989
Structural Studies on HIV Reverse Transcriptase.
Ed. W.G.Laver and G.M.Air. 309-319.
Use of X-ray Crytallography in the Design of Antiviral Agents. Proceedings of International Virology Conference, Hawaii 1989.
Preliminary Crystallographic Data for NAD(P)H Quinone Reductase Isolated from the Walker 256 Rat Carcinoma Cell Line.
J.Mol.Biol., (1989) 205, 623-624.
Publications in Nuclear Physics
YRAST 8+ and 9+ States in 22Na
Phys. Letts., (1989) B217, 28.
Past and present: Many alumni and current members of the Garman group gather at Elspeth's birthday in September 2014. Back row from left to right: Robin Owen, Robert Southworth-Davies, Jonny Brooks-Bartlett, James Murray, Markus Gerstel. Front row from left to right Charlie Bury, Olga Kuznetsova, Elspeth Garman, Areej AbuHammad, Helen Ginn.
Cecile Royal May 2004
Verane Achard 2006
Postdoctoral fellows
Helena Taberman
I obtained my BSc and MSc in Chemistry continuing to PhD in Structural biology at the University of Eastern Finland. With a grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation to work on ‘overcoming challenges of radiation damage in macromolecular complexes at the atomic level’ I will carry out systematic studies on radiation damage to protein, DNA, protein/DNA and protein/RNA crystals during structure determination by X-ray diffraction at cryo- and room temperatures. The new electron density loss pipeline, RIDL, will be used to calculate per-atom metrics to quantify the sensitivity to specific damage. Secondly, the newly established metric, Bdamage, will be used to search for incorrect metal assignments in the PDB followed by measuring some of these proteins using the microPIXE method to unambiguously identify the metals. The results will be then used to analyse if the re-identification of the metal affects the assumed function of the chosen proteins. The third aim of the project is to further improve RADDOSE-3D, which allows the radiation dose distribution during a diffraction experiment to be calculated with both time and space resolution.
- Joined the group in January 2017
Dr. Charlie Bury (Oct 2014 - Dec 2017)
Education: D. Phil student
Charlie's research focused on the development of computational methods (see https://github.com/GarmanGroup/RIDL) to track and quantify site-specific damage events in macromolecular structures solved by MX. Charlie applied these high-throughput tools investigate radiation damage to range of protein and nucleic acid systems, and reported the first systematic comparison of radiation damage susceptibilities of protein and nucleic acids for both DNA- and RNA-containing systems. Charlie's research also included a critical re-analysis of MX damage series that were previously deposited in the PDB, in order to revise the mechanism at which tyrosine residues are believed to be damaged.
Dr. Katharina Jungnickel (Sept 2013 - Dec 2017)
Education: D. Phil student
Kata's research focused on membrane protein structural biology using novel tools such as X-ray free electron lasers (XFEL). Together with Molecular Dimensions Ltd. and supervision by Prof. Elspeth Garman and Dr. Simon Newstead she worked on crystallisation of membrane transporters, development of crystallisation screens and the usage of new techniques in structure determination gaining high resolution data of membrane proteins.
Research assistant
Joshua Dickerson — Improving RADDOSE-3D
I am making improvements to the group’s dose calculation software, RADDOSE-3D. My main focus is on improving the accuracy of the calculated dose by implementing a fluorescent X-ray escape model and improving and extending the current photoelectron escape model.
- Joined the group in November 2017
Kathryn Shelley (June 2016 - Sept 2017)
Education: Biochemistry Part II student
Kathryn's research focused on the advances in specific damage detection using Bdamage metric. She completed development of an open-source tool RABDAM to calculate the per-atom Bdamage metric from PDB files, in addition to a highly informative Bnet metric to give an overall indicator for the damage suffered for a PDB entry. She also worked towards the application of energy minimisation methods to correct metal identification in protein crystals.
Diane Barret (Sept 2016 - July 2017)
Education: Visiting Masters student
Diane's research involved the investigation of radiation damage to crystalline DNA at both cryo and room temperature. Her research aimed to elucidate why exactly DNA crystals are observed to be so insensitive to radiation damage effects compared to proteins.
Research assistant
Joshua Dickerson — Improving RADDOSE-3D
I am making improvements to the group’s dose calculation software, RADDOSE-3D. My main focus is on improving the accuracy of the calculated dose by implementing a fluorescent X-ray escape model and improving and extending the current photoelectron escape model.
- Joined the group in November 2017
Elizabeth Hamilton (Sept 2016 - Mar 2017)
Education: Biochemistry Part II student
Elizabeth investigated the specific damage sites in a biologically relevant protein (a GH7 family protein) to identify the effects of local environment on damage rates and also the influence of radiation damage on the active site.
Katie Nichols (Sept 2016 - Mar 2017)
Education: Biochemistry Part II student
Katie's research focused on the applicability of radical scavengers to mitigate radiation damage in room temperature MX. She tested different compounds on their ability to prevent both global and specific damage to test protein systems.
Steve Walsh (Jan 2017 - Apr 2017)
Education: DTP rotation student
Steve's research involved the implementation of the Compton effect and fluorescent X-ray escape into RADDOSE-3D, in order to provide a more accurate estimate of the absorbed dose during X-ray exposure.
Dr. Jonathan Brooks-Bartlett (October 2013 - December 2016)
Education: D. Phil student
Jonny's research focused on the development of computational methods to track and mathematically correct for detrimental global radiation damage effects when processing diffraction patterns that are collected during MX data collection. His research was not restricted to MX, and he also studied the effects of radiation damage in SAXS data collection, developing an open source python library 'CorMapAnalysis' to visualise the CorMap (Correlation Map) test results for SAXS data and extending the dose calculation software, RADDOSE-3D, for use in SAXS experiments.
Ben Gayther (June 2016 - September 2016)
Education: Visiting BSc student (UCL)
Ben worked on implementing a photoelectron escape model into the current version of RADDOSE-3D. When incident X-ray photons interact with a crystal during crystallography experiments, each incident photon has the possibility of interacting via the photoelectric effect and producing a photoelectron. These photoelectrons are still able to move throughout the crystal even at cryo temperatures. In small crystals this effect can be used to reduce the overall radiation damage. If the photoelectron escapes out of the crystal, then the energy of this photon is deposited elsewhere and will therefore not contribute to the radiation dose in the crystal.
Shu Tsukui (March 2015 - August 2015)
Education: Education: Visiting PhD student (Kyoto University)
Shu investigated the technique of magnetically orientating microcrystals in ultra-light curable resins to create MOMAs (magnetically orientated microcrystal arrays). His research indicated that a combination of MOMAs with conventional synchrotron beamlines could have valuable potential for crystal analyses of protein crystals that do not growto larger sizes.
Rebecca Batters (September 2014 - March 2014)
Education: Part II student
Rebecca studied the effects of sodium nitrate as a scavenging cryoprotectant for X-ray crystallography experiments to see if it would reduce the structural damage caused by the X-rays during an X-ray crystallography experiment. Further to this Rebecca also studied the different scavenging effects of various scavenger species in small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) experiments too.
Tom Dixon (September 2014 - March 2014, October 2014 - January 2015)
Education: Part II student, Research assistant
Tom's research was focussed on quantifying the specific radiation damage to protein molecules in X-ray crystallography experiments. In particular Tom continued work on the B-damage metric, a new metric to developed by Garman group alumnus Markus Gerstel. He adapted the metric to study progressive radiation damage between successive datasets on the same protein structure and also compared how different probing species affects the specific damage observed in protein structures.
Dr. Markus Gerstel (October 2011 - November 2014)
Education: D. Phil student
Markus made many important contributions to the group during his time here. His research focus was on the specific structural damage that occurs to proteins during an X-ray crystallography experiment. He developed a new mtric called B-damage which allows crystallographers to evaluate the relative damage of each atom in the sample molecule taking into account variable factors such as how densely each atom is packed in the molecule. He also made significant contributions as one of the original authors of the groups dose calculation software RADDOSE-3D. Markus now works at Diamond Light Source and is involved improving data collection and analysis pipelines for crystallographic experiments.
Dr. Helen Ginn (March 2014 - December 2014)
Education: Wellcome Trust project student
During her time in the group Helen Ginn made key developments in the groups open source dose calculation software RADDOSE-3D. In particular she wrote extensions so that simulations could be performed on crystals of arbitrary shapes, allow users to use PDB codes to define the content of their protein crystals, and translated legacy code into a single language. Helen is now working towards a D. Phil in Dave Stuart's lab developing new computational tools for processing data collected at X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs).
Oliver Starkey (Sept 2013 - March 2014)
Education: Part II student
Whilst in the group, Oliver worked on Microbeam Proton-Induced X-ray Emission (MicroPIXE). MicroPIXE is a powerful technique that enables identification and quantification of heavy atoms in proteins by using an energetic proton beam to induce characteristic X-rays from these atoms. This complements X-ray crystallography, allowing different metal atoms to be distinguished and more accurately placed in electron density. The main aim of the project was to examine existing metalloproteins in order to validate and/or refine their PDB structures, armed with quantitative data of their metal content. Oliver made ashtonishing discoveries including some that showed that some protein structures that had been deposited in the PDB were deposited with the incorrect metal content.
Dr. Karthik Paithankar (2006 - 2009)
Education: EU funded postdoctoral fellow on the TotalCryst project
Dr. Oliver B Zeldin
Education: D. Phil student 
Dr. Areej Abuhammed
Education: D.Phil student
John Bembridge
Education: Part II student
Young Choi
Education: Part II student
Dr. Robert Davies
Education: D.Phil student
Elisabeth Armstrong
Education: Part II student
Adam Barker
Education: Part II student
Professor John Fink
Education: BA, University of Iowa 
MS, PhD, University of Michigan
Sabbatical Visiting Maths Professor
Dr. Enrique Rudiño-Piñera
Education: BSc in Chemistry at Universidad La Salle-Mexico
MSc in Biotechnology-UNAM-Mexico
PhD in Biochemical Sciences at UNAM-Mexico
Dr. James Murray
Education: BA Hons MSci in Natural Science, Emmanuel College Cambridge
D.Phil in Molecular Biophysics at Worcester College Oxford.
Dr. Robin Owen
Education: MPhys in Physics at Keble College Oxford
D.Phil in Physics at Keble College Oxford
Dr. Kirsten Leath
Education: MPhys in Physics at the University of St. Andrews
D.Phil in Biochemistry at the University Oxford
Olga Kuznetsova
Education: Summer student (2008 and 2009)
François-Xavier Gallat
Education: Summer student (2007)
Verane Achard
Education: Summer student (2006)
Elodie Loisel
Education: Summer student (2005)
Cécile Royal
Education: Summer student (2004)
Andrew Gill
Education: Part II student (2006)
Melissa Medina
Education: Part II student (2006)
Part II students
Tom McDonagh (2007) (summer student)
Andrew Reader (2005)
William Chao (2004) (summer student)
Stephen Betts (2003)
Ben Hall (2002) (summer student)
David Yates (2002)
James Tichler (2002)
James Grimston (2000)
Petra Lukacik (1999)
Dimitri Karathanassis (1999) (summer student)
Paul Tunnah (1995)
CCP4 Study Weekend - Jan 2018
The annual CCP4 Study Weekend took place at the University of Nottingham from 10th - 12th Jan and Elspeth and Helena, along with the Garman group alumni Charlie and Kathryn, attended. This year the meeting was titled 'Multi and Serial Crystal Data Collection and Processing' as an overview to serial crystallography on XFELs and synchrotron sources, and Elspeth chaired the opening session of the main event on the need for multi and serial measurements.
Group Christmas Dinner - Dec 2017
Garman Group had their annual Christmas Dinner at Elspeth's on 16th of December. Unfortunately that was also the farewell party for Charlie and Kata both of whom left the lab and are off to new adventures.
Garman group members from left to right: Josh, Charlie, Kata, Elspeth, Helena and Kathryn. And the Baked Alaska in front!
IUCr Meeting - Aug 2017
Elspeth and Helena attended the triennial 24th Congress and General Assembly of the International Union of Crystallography organised at Hyderabad, India from 21st - 28th Aug. Elspeth was an invited speaker at the 'Minimizing radiation damage' session as well as at the 'Women in Crystallography' lunch seminar organised by Molecular Dimensions. Helena presented a poster on her research on Xylose Isomerase and she also took part on the 'Dragons' Den' competition. Helena also went to the Crystallographic Computing School (15th-20th August 2017) at Bangalore, India right before the main meeting.
Left: Helena's poster. Right: Helena and Elspeth at Dectris party.
Elspeth giving her presentation on the current knowns and unknowns in radiation damage.
Greetings from Bangalore.
From Chocolate to Proteins' - May 2017
Elspeth, Diane and Helena did an outreach at The Royal Institution's Family Fun Day on 13th of May at London. Elspeth gave a talk on crystallography from chocolate to proteins while Helena and Diane helped with the activities.
We also got to see William Lawrence Bragg's Nobel prize at The Royal Institution.
Lunch Break at Bluebell Woods - May 2017
Elspeth took Charlie, Diane, Helena and Anu (from Schnell group) to have a well deserved Friday lunch in the middle of beautiful bluebells at Christmas Common woods.
From left to right: Charlie, Anu, Helena, Elspeth, and Diane.
Back From The Dead - Mar 2017
Along with other volunteers from the Biochemistry Department, Garman Group was involved in hands-on activities explaining how biochemistry contributes to our understanding of antibiotics at the Museum of the History of Science as part of their Back from the Dead education program. The exhibition commemorates the 75th anniversary of the first human trials of penicillin and aims to demystify some of the science behind antibiotics.
Helena making crystals with A-level students.
CCP4 Study Weekend - Jan 2017
From 9th - 11th Jan the annual CCP4 Study Weekend took place at the University of Nottingham and Elspeth, Charlie, Diane, Kathryn and Steve from the group attended. The meeting this year was titled 'From Crystal To Structure' as an overview to the full crystallographic pipeline, and Elspeth chaired a session on model validation and PDB deposition.
ACA meeting - July 2016
Elspeth and Charlie attended the 66th Annual American Crystallographic Association (ACA) meeting, taking place in Denver, Colorado, from 22nd-26th July. Elspeth was an invited speaker as the awardee of the Fankuchen award, for her great contributions to improve cryo-crystallography methods. Charlie was invited to speak as part of the Radiation Damage session, and for this he was awarded the Etter Student Award from the Light Source Special Interest Group.
Charlie receiving his award from Dr Gerd Rosenbaum from the Advanced Light Source in Chicago:
GRC - July 2016
On 17th-22nd July, Elspeth and Charlie attended the Gordon Research Conference on Diffraction Methods (GRC) in Structural Biology, held at Bates College in Maine, USA. Elspeth presented a talk on the microPIXE technique for high precision element detection, which received a great amount of interest from the audience. Charlie presented a poster on his RIDL specific damage quantification pipeline, and the application to investigating the (im)possibility of tyrosine damage events. Charlie also attended the Young Students Gordon Research Symposium (GRS) taking place directly preceding the main conference.
RD9 - March 2016
Elspeth, Jonny, and Charlie attended the 9th International Workshop on X-ray Radiation Damage to Biological Crystalline Samples (RD9) from 9th-11th March 2016, in Lund, Sweden, which Elspeth organised. Elspeth delivered a lecture on the accuracy of dose calculations, and Jonny presented his new research on state-space models for global radiation damage correction. Charlie also gave a short 'taster' talk to advertise his poster on his RIDL specific damage quantification pipeline. The workshop also featured a tour of the newly built MAX-IV synchrotron.
ECM29 - August 2015
Elspeth, Jonny, Charlie and Shu attended the 29th annual European Crystallographic Meeting (ECM29) held in Rovinj, Croatia, from the 23-28th August. Jonny, Charlie and Shu all presented posters at the session, and Elspeth chaired a plenary lecture delivered by Henry Chapman. Jonny and Charlie also attended the Crystallographic Computing Satellite Meeting taking place in Rovinj in the few days directly preceding the main conference, in which Jonny held a series of tutorial sessions on the Julia programming language.
Rapidata - May 2015
From 3rd - 8th May the Rapidata Data Collection and Structure Solving: A Practical Course in Macromolecular X-ray Diffraction Measurement took place at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) for the first time. Elspeth gave crystallisation tutorials and lectures at the workshop. During her stay in Stanford she even unexpectedly bumped into a long time friend and collaborator, Martin Weik.
Fishing for crystals - Mar 2015
As part of an ongoing collaboration with the beamline staff at Diamond Light Source I02 to incorporate RADDOSE-3D (the group's dose calculation software) onto the beamline, the group sometimes bring crystals to the beamline to analyse the dose state of the crystal during and after the experiment. After growing some crystals Jonny and Elspeth went to the crystallisation room to fish for some crystals to bring with them on their next trip to Diamond.
Jonny using equipment to measure the approximate size of the protein crystals before harvesting them.
Puerto Rico - Jan 2015
Elspeth travelled to Puerto Rico to attend the BioXFEL STC 2nd Annual International Conference from the 14th - 16th January where she delivered a presentation for students and postdocs about opportunities in research. During her stay, Elspeth also managed to visit two crystallography PhD students at the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez.
Why Science? Why Maths? - Jan 2015
Jonny took part in the Why Science? Why Maths? event at Cheney School on Tuesday 13th January. This event was aimed at students considering A-Level and post school options in science and maths. There were many hands-on scientific activities available for the students to try, along with a series of talks by various scientists and mathematicians. Jonny joined members of the British Crystallographic Association with their activities and he also delivered a talk of his own about how maths is used to "see" proteins with X-ray crystallography.
CCP4 Study Weekend - Jan 2015
This years annual CCP4 study weekend was held on January 7rd - January 9th 2015 at the University of Nottingham. The focus of the conference was on advances in experimental phasing, which saw many fantastic speakers including Garman group alumnus Robin Owen. In addition the talks during the main conference there were opportunities to talk to the many developers of the various crystallographic software for demos and updates in CCP4. The conference dinner was amazing and the post dinner entertainment - a ceilidh of course - had us dancing until the early hours of the morning.
Garman group members from left to right: Jonny, Thomas, Elspeth and Charlie. Oliver Zeldin is on the far right and is a Garman group alumnus.
The CCP4 meeting is a great chance to network and meet other crystallographers.
Hard at Work on the Beamline - Dec 2014
On 16th December the group went to Diamond Light Source to contine an ongoing collaboration between the Garman group and the beamline scientists at Diamond Light Source beamline I02. The project aims to integrate the group software, RADDOSE-3D, into the beamline software so users can use the software to help them design better strategies to minimise the dose accumulated during the crystallography experiment.
Seated from front to back: Tom Dixon, Jonny Brooks, Charlie Bury, Carina Lobley, Thomas Sorensen. Standing: Markus Gerstel
Meeting with the King of Jordan - Nov 2014
Garman group alumnus, Areej Abuhammad, has been hard at work establishing a crystallography lab at the University of Jordan where she currently holds the position of Assistant Professor. The King of Jordan paid a visit to the University where Areej has been working. She met the King and was able to show him the supercomputer facility where she had set up a station to refine crystal structures.
Areej on the far left showing an electron density map (on screen) to the King of Jordan
Illuminating Atoms: Royal Albert Hall Exhibition - Nov 2014
To celebrate the International Year of Crystallography the Illuminating Atoms exhibition was held at the Royal Albert Hall on the 9th November. The exhibition showcases photographs by Max Alexander portraying people and the work within the field of crystallography. To accompany the exhibition Elspeth also presented a talk about how crystallography changed the world along with a special Q&A. The BBC have also posted an article about the exhibition which include quotes from Elspeth about the event.
There is still a chance to see the exhibition at the Royal Albert Hall as there are free open days on Saturday 15th November, Sunday 16th November and Saturday 29th November.
Synchrotron Radiation User Meeting - Sept 2014
The Synchrotron Radiation Users Meeting (SRUM) was held at Diamond Light Source on the 3rd and 4th September. The meeting is a chance for various users of the Diamond synchrotron to share their research and also to discuss issues regarding the synchrotron facility. Elspeth and Jonny were co-authors on a poster along with Garman group alumnus Robin Owen and collaborator (and first author) Ian Carmichael which won a prize at the meeting.
From left to right: Ian Carmichael, Robin Owen, Jonny Brooks and Elspeth Garman
BCA/CCP4 Summer School - Aug 2014
From August 26th - August 31 the BCA/CCP4 Summer School was held at Diamond Light Source. It is intended for students and researchers that are new to crystallography with it's primary aims to provide comprehensive training in crystallography and to promote best practise within the British crystallographic community. Jonny attended the summer school as a student and Elspeth was involved in teaching on teh course. As well as formal training, the summer school also hosted social events where the attendees could network. The post dinner conference speech was given by Stephen Curry.
The students on the last evening after the formal dinner
All attendees and lecturers on the boat trip along the River Thames in Oxford
Diamond Light Source open day - Aug 2014
On August 20th Diamond Light Source held an open day for members of the general public to view the facility while the beam is down. During this time it is possible to see the rings where the electrons are accelerated to produce the X-rays used for the crystallography experiments. During the open day Jonny helped out at the British Crystallographic Association (BCA) stand where visitors were able to grow lysozyme crystals and make crystal structures out of toothpicks and sweets. The next Diamond open day is in October 2014 so for more details see the Diamond website here.
Some of the group that helped out at the BCA stand at Diamond.
The diamond structure made by one of the BCA stand helpers on the day. Not all of the jelly babies lasted long enough to make a stucture.
Work Experience - Aug 2014
For the week beginning 4th August the Garman group was joined by a fantastic A-level student, Ben. During this week he not only learned about the protein structure determination process but also helped with some cutting edge research experiments that took place at Diamond Light Source.
Jonny, Ben and Charlie at Diamond Light Source beamline I04-1.
Gordon Research Conference - July/Aug 2014
The Gordon Research Conference (GRC) and the Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) on Diffraction Methods in Structural Biology were held from July 26th through to August 1st at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, United States. Elspeth, Jonny and Helen attended and each presented a poster at the meetings. Helen was also selected to deliver an oral presentation from here poster.
Elspeth, Jonny and Helen having fun with the car that was rented for the trip.
Group photos with all of the attendees at the conference.
Helen, Arwen Pearson and Elspeth on the ferry to Cushings Island where the group stayed with some of Elspeth's friends prior to the GRS and GRC meetings.
Charlie and the chocolate factory - July 2014
To celebrate Charlie's last journal club before leaving the Garman group for his second Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) short project journal club was held outdoors and the group celebrated with chocolate cake.
Charlie with the chocolate cake after the first incision.
The group outdoors while Charlie cuts slices of cake. At some point the group did actually go over the paper for journal club.
id2 Conference - June 2014
The annual Interdisciplinary Inter-DTC (id2) conference took place at the University of Oxford on the 26th and 27th June. Jonny was one of the organisers of this student conference which aims to bring students together from all over the UK and abroad to network and showcase their interdisciplinary research within the life sciences field. Over the two days the delegates presented posters and talks and also heard talks from keynote speakers, Dr Lisa Melton of Nature Biotech, Sir Professor Mike Brady and Professor Denis Noble. Elspeth was also involved at the conference as a poster judge.
The id2 conference organising committee together after the conference.
Elspeth and Charlotte Deane judging during the poster session.
A Massive " Thank You" - June 2014
Elspeth received a BIG "thank you" from a group of young students (the oldest of them being 21) whom she helped by co-editing a scientific paper for them. For many of the students it is their first publication. To express their gratitude, they sent this fantastic picture. We wish them all the best.
Cheltenham Science Festival - June 2014
Jonny joined the British Crystallographic Association Education and Outreach (BCA Education) group on 8th June to do more public engagement of crystallogrpahy at the Cheltenham Science Festival. At the stand members of the public could interactively learn about the process of crystallography with several hands on activities including a growing crystals of lysozyme, pouring marbles to make crystal lattices and operating a model lego beamline. Follow BCA Education on Twitter to learn more about what they do.
The BCA Education stand at the festival.... before the arrival of the public
Showing off the model lego beam line to members of the public
ISSC14, Crystallographic summer school, Hamburg - May 2014
From May 11-17 Katharina visited her home country, Germany. She attended the International Summer School of Crystallography at DESY/CFEL in Hamburg, organised by Cornelius Gati of Henry Chapman’s laboratory.
She was accompanied by her fellowship friend Ana Rita and also met Markus (also from her fellowship) at the course. Around 30 international students were lucky to get accepted and be welcomed to intensive lectures about the mathematical background of crystallography, held by Carmelo Giacovazzo. Beside that, a barbecue and a harbor trip were organised to get to know the city and the other students of the course. Overall, a full success!
Ana Rita and Katharina enjoying the weather and harbour birthday in Hamburg.
A Pint of Science - May 2014
May 21st marked the final evening of the international science festival Pint of Science, which aims to deliver complex, cutting-edge science in a informal environment - in the pub. Elspeth Garman was invited to give a talk in the St. Aldates pub titled A new bird flu (H7N9). Should we be afraid? There was even a flu related pub quiz which was won by a group consisting of Beth Phipps and Garman group students Helen and Jonny.
Elspeth during her talk.
Elspeth with Oxford Pint of Science organiser, Stanley Strawbridge, drawing a ticket for the raffle - which turned out to be Jonny's number!
Elspeth with Garman group members Helen (left) and Jonny (right) along with Beth Phipps.
A Royal Address - Apr 2014
On 28th April Elspeth gave an invited talk at the Royal Society Discussion meeting on ‘Cell Adhesion century: culture breakthrough’ on: Anti-viral adhesion molecular mechanisms for influenza.
Abstract:
Infection by the influenza virus depends firstly on cell adhesion via the sialic acid binding viral surface protein, haemagglutinin, and secondly on the successful escape of progeny viruses from the host cell to enable the disease to spread to other cells. To achieve the latter, influenza utilises another glycoprotein, the enzyme neuraminidase (NA), to cleave the sialic acid receptors from the surface of the original host cell. This talk will trace the development of anti-influenza drugs, from the initial suggestion by MacFarlane Burnet in 1948 that an effective “competitive poison” of the virus’ NA might be useful in controlling infection by the virus, through to the determination of the structure of NA by X-ray crystallography and the realisation of Burnet’s idea with the design of NA inhibitors. A focus will be the contribution of the late William Graeme Laver to this research.
Cryocool and the gang - Apr 2014
The Garman group is growing and with new members comes the transfer of knowledge. Markus and Jonny went digged down to the depths of their knowledge to show the new members of the Garman group, Helen Ginn and Charlie Bury, how to fish and cryo cool their crystals.
The damage has been done... Crystallographically of course - Apr 2014
Markus, Jonny and Elspeth all attended the 8th International Workshop on X-ray Radiation Damage to Biological Crystalline Samples (RD8) meeting at EMBL Hamburg 10th - 12th April. This was a meeting co-organised by Elspeth and covered many different aspects of radiation damage research. There were tours of the PETRA III synchrotron and the building site for the new European X-ray Free Electron laser. Markus was even invited by the organisers to give a talk.
As usual the group still manage to find the time to have some fun!
After dinner at the conference Elspeth is joined by current members of the Garman group along with Garman group Alumni. From left to right - Markus Gerstel, Oli Zeldin, Elspeth Garman, Robin Owen and Jonny Brooks.
More after dinner fun. From left to right - Jonny Brooks, Professor Ian Carmichael and Robin Owen.
Elspeth inside the tunnel during the tour of the new European X-ray free electron laser.
At the BBQ dinner. From left to right - Jonny Brooks, Markus Gerstel and Gerard Bricogne
Enjoying Ice cream at a cafe after the conference with some honourary Garman Gang friends. From left to right - Matthew Rodrigues, Professor Arwen Pearson, Garman group alumnus Oli Zeldin and Briony Yorke.
Meals at the speakers' dinner on the final evening of the conference. Just beautiful!
Street performers in Hamburg city centre.
Learning the ways of Crystallography - Mar 2014
During the first year of the Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) at the University of Oxford you get options to take various modules and one of those happens to be Advanced experimental techniques (AET). Markus and Jonny were around to assist on the AET module this year teaching first year DTC students how to set up a crystallisation plate with Lysozyme crystals and how to fish your crystals once they've grown.
Having fun in the crystallisation room. From Left to right: Markus, Jakub Tomek, Martin Ducker, Thomas Newport and Jonny.
Markus in the process of finding a loop in the microscope to show the DTC students how small the loops are.
Elspeth in SCIENCE!
Elspeth has published a review article in one of the world's top scientific journals: Science. The title of the review is "Developments in X-ray Crystallographic Structure Determination of Biological Macromolecules" and covers the achievements made within the field so far along with future developments that could help us overcome the challenges that crystallography faces today. For links to the article go to our publication page here.
Reaching out to the people - Mar 2014
On March the 14th and 15th Katharina, Jonny and Elspeth helped the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford to deliver a series of public engagement events about crystallography to celebrate the international year of crystallography. On the 14th was a sixth form study day where Elspeth gave a lecture and Jonny and Katharina ran practical workshops on using microscopes, growing lysozyme crystals and visualising proteins. On the 15th the museum ran a family day where children and adults of all ages came to learn about crystals and grew lysozyme with us. Both events were fantastic and incredibly rewarding.
Going out with a BANG! - Mar 2014
On March 13th-16th the annual Big Bang fair was held at the NEC in Birmingham and Jonny was there to help out. The Big Bang fair is aimed at young people (aged 7 - 19 primarily) and showcases opportunities and research in a fun and engaging manner. Diamond Light Source had a stand at the fair to demonstrate the various areas and uses of X-ray crystallography. Jonny volunteered to help with the event where he met several other crystallographers. He also enjoyed making crystals of lysozyme with the young people and getting them engaged in science.
Jonny with co-developer of the first Cryostream Cooler Prof Mike Glazer
With another volunteer Felice Laake
The entire crystallography team on the 13th March at the end of the day. (Very exhausting)
The infamous model lego beamline. It's amazing, it really works!
Beamline Funeral - Feb 2014
Elspeth delievered a talk at the ESRF user meeting on 3rd February to commemorate the ID14-4 beamline which has now been closed down at the ESRF Grenoble. Elspeth's talk, titled "On-line microspectrophotometry and a tophat beam: the magic of ID14-4" was a fitting tribute to one of her favourite beamlines for which many of her scientific experiments took place.
Elspeth delivering the lecture with her title slide.
During the lecture.
It's in the BAG - Feb 2014
On February 25th and 26th Diamond Light Source held a two day BAG training event for crystallographers attended by Jonny. The event was designed to provide macromolecular crystallography (MX) users with sufficient training to be able to operate any of the Diamond MX beamlines efficiently and to get the most benefit from their beamtime. This included a session on software training, where many of the developers were present to provide hands on training with the programs and also visits to many of the MX beamlines with the beamline scientists present to help. Jonny stayed at the Bear hotel on the first evening and ate a delicious meal that included a fantastic slow cooked pork bell and a chocolate and baileys tart (pictured below). It was delicious! Jonny used that time to meet many of the crystallographers on the training event. All in all a brilliant experience.
From left to right: Jonny, Patrick McIntyre, Ian Cadby, Joseph Brock, Daren Fearon and Michael capper
The fantastic Chocolate and Baileys tart with tia maria clotted cream
A Bavarian Adventure - Feb 2014
Katharina travelled to Bavaria to attend the first Ringberg workshop on structural biology with free electron lasers at the Max Planck Society castle accompanied by her other supervisor Simon Newstead. Not only was the location overwhelming but the presentations about the applications of X-ray free electron lasers, its future and current developments were brilliant. The conference gave visitors both time to talk to the leading scientists in the field and generate new ideas for their future work. Katharina met two of the fellows from Nanomem program again and also some of the scientists that she met on her cross Atlantic journey. A full success!
Enjoying the castle. From left to right: Markus Metz, Katharina and Akram Mohd.
What a view!
The Cross Atlantic Journey - Part 1: Nozzle Workshop at ASU - Feb 2014
Katharina was invited to attend a workshop in John Spence's lab at Arizona State University(ASU) focussing on prodcuing nozzles for the liquid jet, used for X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) experiments. From 27. Jan-31. Jan she learned, together with other participants from PSI and GU, how difficult the process of making these hand-made pieces can be. In the end she was able to produce two functioning nozzles. Nevertheless, she also enjoyed the sunny weather with fellow attendees and the lovely atmosphere in the lab with Stella Lisova giving the workshop.
From left to right: Rajiv Harimoorthy, Katharina Jungnickel, John Spence, Stella Lisova and Przemyslaw Nogly.
Katharina tries to put on a spacer for the sample capillaries for the nozzle.
The Cross Atlantic Journey - Part 2: XFEL Fun - Feb 2014
After a wonderful week in Arizona, Katharina flew over to Stanford to meet Vadim Cherezov who showed her how they collect XFEL data at the CXI beamline. Not only did she gain knowledge about sample handling but she also got the chance to speak to Uwe Weierstall about the injector system and Petra Fromme about experimenting at XFEL. During her time there she visited Stanford University where she met Garman group alumnus, Oliver Zeldin, and she also got to visit San Francisco.
Inside of the hutch of CXI
Katharina at the Golden Gate Bridge
Taking Care of Business in Hamburg - Data Collection - Jan 2014
Elspeth and Jonny travelled to Hamburg for 6 days between Wednesday 15th January and Monday 20th January to collect diffraction data from various crystals of various proteins. This involved many late nights at the PETRA III synchrotron (the last night ended at 5:30am) but also incredible food. The data collection was made so much easier with invaluable support from Thomas Schneider and Gleb Bourenkov who assisted with the data collection and helped us find our way around the city - we even were invited to Thomas' home to have dinner with his family. Elspeth and Jonny also had their fair share of fun whilst there. The facility is so large that many people get around on scooters inside the building and we weren't afraid to try.
From left to right - Jonny, Gleb Bourenkov, Elspeth and Thomas Schneider
Evening with the Schneider family
Elspeth taking some time out of data collection
CUI Colloquium Talk at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory - Jan 2014
On Thursday 16th January Elspeth delivered a talk titled “Cross disciplinary methods development for advancing structural biology” at EMBL Hamburg. In this talk Elspeth gave a brief introduction to crystallography and covered aspects of her work that included the development of RADDOSE-3D and micro-PIXE.
CCP4 Study Weekend - Jan 2014
This years annual CCP4 study weekend was held on January 3rd - January 5th 2014 at the University of Nottingham. The focus of the conference was on complimentary methods to X-ray crystallography which saw many fantastic speakers including Garman group alumni Robin Owen. In addition the talks during the main conference there were opportunities to talk to the many developers of the various crystallographic software for demos and updates in CCP4. The conference dinner was amazing and the post dinner entertainment had us dancing until the early hours of the morning.
Doctoral Training Centre Christmas Dinner
Towards the end of the Christmas term, the Doctoral Training Centre at Oxford held it's annual DTC christmas dinner attended by over 100 students across the various DTC programmes. Garman Group members Markus and Jonny attended as well as Elspeth. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Until next year......
Lectures in Lapland - Dec 2013
British Crystallographic Association Winter Meeting - Dec 2013
On Monday 16th December 2013 Jonny and Katharina travelled to King's College London for the British Crystallographic Association's (BCA) winter meeting for the Biological Structures Group (BSG). Here they learned about several advancements in the field including updates on the status of the UK involvement in the European X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) project. On the trip they also managed to fit in some time to explore London.
Training in Gothenburg - Dec 2013
In December 2013 Katharina flew to Gothenburg for a week of crystallography training. The first three days she visited Astra Zaneca and was introduced to the entire process of compound discovery from screening a large number of compounds for a specific target to introducing the optimised compound to clinical trials. Thursday and Friday she had soft skills training at the university of gothenburg. The session was divided into several sections covering career development planning, gender issues and steps towards delivering good presentations.
Diamond Light Source Trip - Dec 2013
On Thursday 12th December Jonny and Oliver visited the Diamond Light Source (DLS) synchrotron to observe experiments that were taking place at the time. During the visit we both learnt a lot and we managed to get into the experiment hutch where these pictures were taken:
Lipidic Cubic Phase Plate Practice - Dec 2013
On Tuesday 10th December Katharina demonstrated the difficulties trying to cut open Lipidic Cubic Phase (LCP) plates. It requires a lot of care and accuracy and it was incredibly difficult. Below you can see Oliver having a go:
Illuminating Atoms - Elspeth Presents at the Royal Albert Hall
To celebrate the International Year of Crystallography the Illuminating Atoms exhibition was held at the Royal Albert Hall on the 9th November. The exhibition showcases photographs by Max Alexander portraying people and the work within the field of crystallography. The event featured Elspeth who gave a talk about how crystallography has changed the world. The BBC has posted an article about the event which include quotes from Elspeth about the event.
The Life Scientific - Elspeth is intereviewed on BBC radio 4
Each week on the BBC Radio 4 programme, The Life Scientific, theoretical physicist, author and broadcaste Jim Al-Khalili invites a leading scientist to talk about their life and work, including Nobel laureates and now Elspeth Garman. It is a great honour to be invited on to the show. You can listen to the full programme here.
Elspeth does Lab Talk - Interview with Oxford Medical Sciences
Oxford Medical Sciences division has published an interview with Elspeth for the September 2014 issue of OxfordMedSci News. In the interview Elspeth describes the research that is conducted within the lab, what a typical day is like here as well as a brief discussion on how she got to where she is today. For the full interview click here.
Crystals meet Royalty - Elspeth presents crystallography for the Royal Institution Channel
Elspeth continues to promote crystallography, this time explaining crystallography in detail in a video made for the Ri Channel. In the video Elspeth covers how we produce and purify proteins in the lab and how and why we crystallise these proteins. This is the first of a two part series celebrating the International year of crystallography.
Animation at it's finest - Introduction to crystallography
Elspeth and Jonny were fortunate enough to work with Annabel Cook from Oxford Sparks to help put together the fantastic animation on X-ray crystallography to celebrate 2014 as the International year of crystallography. The animation is designed for a non-specialist audience and gives an overview of crystallography and what it can do. The animation can be found on the Oxford Sparks webpage along with more information about crystallography.
Elspeth on the Radio
Elspeth Garman was on the radio on Sunday 28 July contributing to the BBC World Service's 'The Forum', an ideas discussions show. The episode was called 'Shining a Light on Crystals', and Elspeth spoke about her work trying to find the perfect protein crystal. Listen to it here.
Elspeth on the Radio...again
Professor Elspeth Garman commemorates a century since the publication of an idea that made discovering protein structures possible: The Bragg Equation. She takes us from the Braggs' father-and-son discovery of x-ray crystallography and publication of the structure of table salt in 1913, to the cutting-edge work happening in her lab at Oxford University. Listen to it here.
Elspeth delivers the 2010 Dorothy Hodgkin Memorial Lecture
Somerville College and the Association for Women in Science and Engineering hold the annual Dorothy Hodgkin Memorial Lecture. On the centenary of Dorothy Hodgkin's birth, the lecture was given by Professor Elspeth Garman (former president, British Crystallographic Association, Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Director of the Life Sciences Interface, Doctoral Training Centre, University of Oxford, and Senior Kurti Fellow, Brasenose College) on the topic of 'Crystallography One Century AD (after Dorothy)'. Click here to see the lecture
Jonny and others create an X-ray Crystallography Mini Movie
During a structural biology module at the Systems Biology Doctoral Training Centre (Sysbio DTC) Jonny and colleagues (Pedro Aparicio and Isabel Frost) created a mini movie titled "Is X-ray Crystallography the answer to everything?" This is the finished product.
Charlie awarded Etter Student Award
Charlie has won the Etter Student Award from the Light Source Special Interest Group of the ACA. He received the award at the 66th Annual ACA meeting in Denver on 26th July 2016, where he delivered a lecture entitled ‘RIDL: A tool to track MX specific radiation damage’ to the session on radiation damage in macromolecular crystallography The award consisted of a plaque, a cheque, and a free registration for next year’s ACA meeting in New Orleans. Picture on left shows Charlie receiving award from Dr Gerd Rosenbaum from the University of Georgia and the Advanced Light Source in Chicago.
Elspeth wins Fankuchen Award
Elspeth has been awarded the 2016 .American Crystallographic Association Fankuchen Award, an award created "to recognize contributions to crystallographic research by one who is known to be an effective teacher of crystallography". Elspeth received the award at the 66th Annual ACA meeting, in Denver, Colorado in July 2016, in which she will give a prize lecture.
The prestigious Fankuchen Award is given every 3 years, in memory of Dr. I. Fankuchen, Professor of Physics at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn from 1942 to 1964 (shown in photo on left).
Elspeth wins Mildred Dresselhaus Prize
Elspeth has been awarded the 2015 Mildred Dresselhaus Award by the University of Hamburg. The award recognizes Elspeth’s outstanding contributions to structural biology as well as mentoring and training a generation of crystallographers. The award was presented this year by the Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging (CUI) and includes a personal prize combined with a guest professorship. The picture on the left shows Elspeth receiving her award from Prof. Arwen Pearson from the CUI. Well done Elspeth!
Jonny wins I'm A Scientist Get Me Out Of Here
From the 15th - 26th June Jonny took part in a science communication competition called I'm A Scientist Get Me Out Of Here. It's a free online event where school students meet and interact with scientists and the students are the judges. They challenge a group of scientists over fast-paced online text-based live chats, ask them anything they want, and then vote for their favourite scientist to win a prize of £500 to communicate their work with the public. Jonny won this competition although has not yet come up with a plan for the money.
Elspeth wins WIFTS Foundation Humanitarian award
For her contributions to the field of X-ray crystallogrpahy and her ongoing commitment to the public understanding of the field, Elspeth has recieved the 2014 WIFTS Foundation Humanitarian Award. The WIFTS (Women's International Film and Television Showcase) "strives to create a new strand of recognition, finding outstanding gems of individuality’ within all arenas and bring them together through the art form of Film & Television". In particular Elspeth's award comes from work Elspeth did with the Royal Institution, presenting the first of a 2 part documentary on Understanding Crystallography
Jonny wins poster prize at the Gordon Research Seminar
At the Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) on Diffraction Methods in Structural Biology that took place on the 26th and 27th July 2014 Jonny was one of the five winners of the poster prize for best poster. His poster titled "Crystal Math: Dose Decay of Diffraction" detailed his work on investigating the ability of different mathematical models of diffracted intensity decay to describe data that were collected at the PETRA III synchrotron in Hamburg in January 2014.
Life is all roses - Elspeth Presented with Rose Award Lecture
Elspeth delivered the 2014 Rose Award Lecture which recognises the contribution of distinguished female scientists and Engineers. Elspeth gave her talk about how the legacy of the Braggs (William and Henry) lives on with the techniques of crystallography that are still in use to study biological structure and function on a molecular level.
Elspeth is pictured holding her award with professor Julius Weinberg, Kingston University Vice-Chancellor.
Doing the Double - Elspeth wins second teaching award in 8 days
Elspeth wins another teaching award at the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences (MPLS) division Summer Party. Elspeth won the award for her committment and quality of teaching at the Doctoral Training Centre (DTC). However, Elspeth could not make the award ceremony so Jonny attended instead to collect the certificate on Elspeth's behalf. Elspeth runs the introductory maths course for postgraduate students in their first year at the DTC.
Teaching Excellence - Elspeth wins award at the OUSU Teaching Awards 2014
Elspeth has been awarded 'Most Acclaimed Lecturer' 2014 in the Medical Sciences at the Oxford University Student Union (OUSU) Teaching Awards - an award she was also shortlisted for in 2013.
Between teaching at the Doctoral Training Centre and first year biochemistry undergraduates, Elspeth has a wealth of experience in teaching at the University and the award is the result of the hard work, time and effort put in to create a high quality teaching experience for the students.
For the full list of winners in the 2014 OUSU Teaching Awards click here.
Jonny get runner-up prize at the FameLab UK final
On April 23rd 2014 Jonny Brooks competed in the UK national FameLab final and was awarded the runner-up prize. Jonny gave his 3 minute presentation explaining the infectious disease model of Facebook membership used by Princeton researchers used to show that Facebook would lose 80% of it's users by 2017. Click here to watch the video.
Markus is Invited to present talk and Radiation Damage 8 Workshop
Markus Gerstel was invited to give a talk at the RD8 meeting at EMBL Hamburg in April 2014. His talk titled "Quantifying radiation damage in real space" covered some of the work that he's been working on in his DPhil project. In particular he presented work on a new atomic metric for real space radiation damage, BDamage.
Markus is Invited to present at Red Kite 5 meeting
At the recent Red Kite meeting in January held at the University of Oxford, Markus Gerstel was invited to give a talk titled "Quantifying radiation damage in MX."
Jonny Wins Regional Famelab Final
On December 12th 2013 Jonny Brooks competed and won the regional finals of Famelab. Famelab is a science communication competition where each competitor has 3 minutes to explain a science, technology, engineering or mathematical topic of their choice to a non-specialist audience without the use of digital aids such as power point. Jonny decided to present a talk on "The magic of Fourier Transforms" describing how to interpret the Fourier transform of a wave with a couple of real world applications.
Click here to watch the Oxford Regional Final
Jonny Wins Poster Prize at ECM28
Jonathan Brooks-Bartlett won the RCSB Protein Data Bank poster prize for the best student poster related to macromolecular crystallography at the European Crystallography Meeting earlier in the year.
The poster was based on work that he did in the group in summer 2013 during his 10 week project before starting his DPhil here. His poster presented the work he had done using an existing model of damage decay applied to data that was collected by a previous student within the Garman group. It described the application of a room temperature model for the dose decay of the spot intensity on a diffraction pattern to cryotemperatures (at 100 Kelvin) during macromolecular x-ray crystallography experiments.
For more information click here.
Oliver Zeldin
- Notable Prize Winner, Biochemistry DPhil Symposium, University of Oxford 2012
- Talk selected for presentation at Biochemistry DPhil symposium, Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics Seminar Series, University of Oxford 2012
- Selected Poster for Oral Presentation (RADDOSE-3D), Gordon Research Conference on Diffraction Methods in Structural Biology, ME, USA, 2012
- Best Talk by a Young Crystallographer, (microPIXE) British Crystallographic Association Spring Meeting, Keele 2011
Eugenio de la Mora Lugo
- David Phillips Blue John BCA Biological Poster Prize, British Crystallographic Association Spring Meeting, Warwick 2009
Address
Department of Biochemistry
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Builiding
University of Oxford
South Parks Road
Oxford
OX1 3QU
Elspeth Garman: elspeth.garman@bioch.ox.ac.uk
Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Positions: No longer taking new researchers into the group.
RADDOSE-3D
RADDOSE-3D is a software program that allows the macroscopic modelling of an X-ray diffraction experiment for the purpose of better predicting radiation-damage progression. A spatially and temporally resolved distribution of dose is calculated and output by the program. Below is an example output using RADDOSE-3D.
2013
Structure of arylamine N-acetyltransferase from M.tuberculosis: triumph over adversity A. Abuhammed, E.D. Lowe, M. A. McDonough, E.Sim and E.F. Garman http://journals.iucr.org/a/issues/2013/a1/00/a50772/a50772.pdf
Get the most out of your precious crystal with three-dimensional dose modeling
O. B. Zeldin, M. Gerstel, S. Brockhauser, J. Bremridge and E. F. Garman http://journals.iucr.org/a/issues/2013/a1/00/a50774/a50774.pdf
X-ray induced disulfide bond cleavage studied with EPR, optical absorption and X-ray diffraction
E. H. Snell, K. A. Sutton, P. Black, K. R. Mercer, E. F. Garman, R. L. Owen and W. A. Bernhard
http://journals.iucr.org/a/issues/2013/a1/00/a50775/a50775.pdf
I am a protein crystal: get me out of here!
E. F. Garman
http://journals.iucr.org/a/issues/2013/a1/00/a50909/a50909.pdf
X-ray induced disulfide bond cleavage studied with EPR, optical absorption and X-ray diffraction
E. H. Snell, K. A. Sutton, P. Black, K. R. Mercer, E. F. Garman, R. L. Owen and W. A. Bernhard
http://journals.iucr.org/a/issues/2013/a1/00/a51053/a51053.pdf
Quantitative radiation damage studies in macromolecular X-ray crystallography
M. Gerstel, N. Olekhnovich, J. Brooks-Bartlett, Z. S. Derewenda, C. M. Deane and E. F. Garman
http://journals.iucr.org/a/issues/2013/a1/00/a51055/a51055.pdf
Exploring relationships between diffracted intensity decay and a new dose metric
J. Brooks-Bartlett, O. B. Zeldin and E. F. Garman
http://journals.iucr.org/a/issues/2013/a1/00/a51057/a51057.pdf
