A full house gathered in Science Center D yesterday afternoon to hear Nobel prize-winner Robert Huber speak about his research in determining molecular structures.

Huber, who was awarded the 1988 Nobel prize in Chemistry, is the director of the Max-Planck-Institut fur Biochemie in Martinsried, Germany.

Huber's speech, "Structure and Function of Large Proteins and Protein Assemblies by X-Ray Crystallography and Electron Microscopy," was the 1997 Max Tishler Prize Lecture, established in 1951 by an award from the Merck Sharp & Dohme Company.

Huber's research is two-fold: it focuses both on the structure and function of biological macro-molecules and on their functional importance. Additionally, he studies experimental methods for the X-ray crystallography of proteins.

Proteins are the basic machinery of cells--they are responsible for every process that occurs in the body. X-ray crystallography is a technique used for mapping a protein's structure atom-by-atom to create a three-dimensional model, much like a fingerprint.

"Without structure, there is no biochemistry and no biology," Huber said. "I think that [structural biology] is the field in science that offers adventure more than any other because each of these large proteins that we look at is for me like discovering a new island."

Huber said that despite scientists' knowledge of the environments in which we live, the basic processes of life are not as well understood.

"There are no new unknown islands to be discovered nowadays: we know every centimeter of the earth from satellites, but [proteins] are the new islands to be discovered," he said. "That is one point that is a great draw for me personally."

Huber stressed the importance of using the structures of proteins to determine their function in cellular processes.

"How should we understand the biology [and] the biochemistry without knowing the structure of the molecules that carry out those jobs that form cellular aggregates that carry out the enzymatic functions?" Huber asked.

Huber said that because proteins are the basis for everything that happens in the body, they are central to biology.

"If you look at modern biochemistry textbooks, there is a transformation," Huber said. "[Today], you find pictures of proteins on every page, while ten years ago, there were only a few hemoglobin structures."

Huber cites the proliferation of structural information in basic texts as proof of its centrality in modern biochemistry.

"There is [now] an appreciation of the importance of structural information for our understanding of biochemistry and biology," he said.

Huber noted that many of the examples he presented are targets of pharmaceutical drug design, one of the interests of Max Tishler.