BSA Distinguished Lecture
"A Hundred Years of Visualizing Molecular Structure"
Presented by Professor Venki Ramakrishnan, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
Wednesday, September 30, 2015, 4 pm
Berkner Hall Auditorium
Hosted by: Peter Wanderer
It has been a hundred years since molecules were first visualized directly by using x-ray crystallography. That technique gave us our first look at molecules as simple as common salt to one as complex as the ribosome that has almost a million atoms. In the last few years, electron microscopy has offered an alternative to directly obtaining the structure of very large molecules. I will describe some highlights in this journey with an emphasis on the recent developments in electron microscopy and how it is creating a new range of possibilities for visualizing biological structures.