Structural Chemistry Group

Research activity in the structural chemistry group:

• Chemical crystallography
  -structure elucidation of small organic compounds
• Protein crystallography
  -proteins and their macromolecular complexes
• Structural biology
  -biophysical and biochemical methods to dynamic structure-function relation studies of biologically active macromolecules 

Structural biology is by far the largest activity and this will remain the main focus for the foreseeable future.

X-ray crystallography is the main experimental technique used for both chemical and macromolecular structure determination. The structural biology activity, however, covers the full range of techniques from cloning of genes to structure determination by crystallographic techniques, and structure-function relation studies by biophysical and biochemical methods, computational biology and bioinformatics.

The structural chemistry group is, together with the Molecular biosystems group, currently the host of the Norwegian Structural Biology Centre (NorStruct), a national technology platform financed by the programme in functional genomics (FUGE) in the Research Council of Norway (RCN). A major part of the activity in the group is connected to NorStruct.

The group is also engaged in the Center for Research-based Innovation (MabCent), with a particular responsibility for the structural determination of biological macromolecules.

Structure-function relation studies of biologically active macromolecules have been developed as the main research profile of the structural chemistry research group. The thematic research areas are not rigidly defined, but can be grouped into four broad areas:

1. Signal transduction pathways
2. DNA-modulating molecules and systems
3. Molecules involved in host-pathogen interactions
4. Environmental adaptation of molecules

The structural chemistry group currently comprises four faculty members:

Professor Lars Kr. Hansen	Professor Richard A. Engh	Professor Arne O. Smalås	Associate professor Ingar Leiros