Books in the Series in Structural Biology series

About 50 publications out of more than 500 have been selected from the work of Michael Rossmann covering the years from 1958 to 2012. These include his early work with Max Perutz on hemoglobin and the first protein structures to his current work on the structures of small icosahedral and large polymorphic viruses. These papers describe not only some of the first protein and virus structures, but also the crystallographic and electron microscopic technologies. Furthermore, the author's interests include evolution and protein folding. The selected papers are a personal history of structural biology and especially of structural virology. The papers describe many of the basic techniques of structural biology such as isomorphous replacement, anomalous dispersion of X-rays, the molecular replacement method, X-ray diffraction data processing and combining crystallographic data with electron microscopic images. The book covers much of the historical development of the modern flourishing field of structural biology in terms of the authors' own contributions.

This book describes the accomplishments of a curious and imaginative scientist, and his endeavours to translate or even to extrapolate scientific insights into the world of art.The science section in this volume concerns studies on S-layers, a very important class of proteins found on the surface of numerous Bacteria and nearly all Archaea. S-layer proteins are one of the most abundant biopolymers on our planet, and assemble into the simplest type of biological membrane. Moreover, they are unique building blocks and patterning elements for the production of complex supramolecular structures and nanoscale devices in nanobiotechnology, molecular nanotechnology, synthetic biology, biomimetics and nanomedicine.In the second part of this book the author goes on to passionately describe how his scientific activities stimulated his art work, which in particular concerns the visualization of results and the potential of synthetic biology and evolutionary events induced by genetic manipulations. Most importantly, the engagement in art allowed him to leave the rather curtailed canon of science and reach a mental state of unlimited freedom of thoughts. Mask-like sculptures are used as examples to visualize the intersection between science and art, and in particular the unpredictability and mystery of scientific visions.

This book is intended for students and general readers who are interested in the structures of biological molecules and history of science. The center of gravity of Alexander Rich's work is on nucleic acids and their structures and their roles in biology, but the breadth of his work is nearly unparalleled. Alex Rich published important early discoveries on the structure and activity of RNA, information transfer (translation) from RNA to protein, the structure of ribosomes with insights into polyribosome functions, the first atomic-resolution structure of nucleic acid base pairings, and the discovery of a hitherto-unknown conformation of DNA. Many of Rich's articles also have a focus on the structure of proteins in general as well as specific proteins and some are concerned with the structure of viruses. Some of Rich's early experimental work is based on scattering of X-rays from fibers but X-ray diffraction from crystals became the dominating technique of the Cold War.This is a book full of rich history of early days of modern biology and many fundamental discoveries. Alex Rich's main focus throughout his long career was on nucleic acids. His first paper on nucleic acids, was published together with JD Watson. Two years later, Rich reported creating fibers of poly-Uracil and poly-Adenine and studied their structures by diffraction.Alex Rich's laboratory determined the high resolution crystal structures of the ApU and GpC fragments of double helical RNA from Rich's group is considered a landmark in the detailed understanding of nucleic acid structure.