Protein structure from x-ray diffraction.

Protein crystallography is the study of the three-dimensional structures of proteins at near atomic resolution. It has provided at remendous insight into the workings of numerous biological processes over the last few decades. The field has undergone a massive worldwide expansion over the last ten years, not only in academic laboratories, but also in the pharmaceutical industry. The main driving force for this expansion has been the promise of using three-dimensional atomic structures of proteins and other macromolecules to design lead drugs and to improve the action of existing drugs.