"[The clinical significance is] the implication of the structures for drug design, drug discovery and drug development," Huber said.
Huber began his lecture by describing how structural biology could be used to view organisms as a sum of their parts. "I [present] the nightmare of a structural biologist--to see a mouse at atomic resolution," Huber said. This task is analogous to finding a needle in a hay stack. Diagramming the method for separating a mouse into its components, Huber suggested the use of tomography, electron microscopy, biochemical analysis, crystal decoration, X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging for high-resolution, atomic detail. Huber described the work his research group has done with several protein structures, emphasizing the complementarity of relatively low-resolution electron microscopy and high-resolution X-ray crystallography. "Electron microscopy helps to overcome the phase problem [of crystallography], providing the initial picture that is sufficient for carrying out the [X-ray] high resolution studies," Huber said. In addition to developing new drugs, Huber said this type of work is of interest to the average person. "For the person on the street, I think yes, [they] would like to know how nature's bodies function [and] how their bodies function," Huber said. "It is on our side to make our research understandable, and the better it is for us all." Huber said the development of his interest in structural biology is an adventure. "I studied chemistry, and realized that crystal structures had a particular appeal for me," Huber said. Huber said he started his research by examining small molecule crystal structures. "I started to like the method of crystallography and the results, the precise atomic arrangements of large molecules," Huber said. "I thought the field was packed with this discovery aspect, which I was interested by." Huber will deliver a second lecture, "Proteolytic Enzymes and Their Inhibitors, Structures, Functions and Tools for Basic Science and Medicine," today at 5 p.m. in the Pfizer Lecture Hall, Mallinckrodt MB-23. Both lectures are sponsored by the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.