It’s square one. It’s step one. It puts the “basic” in basic science. How ever you describe it, understanding protein structure and function through what’s called X-ray crystallography is an important approach in many areas of biochemistry, including drug design. And it’s a technique many researchers in the Department of Biochemistry at UW–Madison specialize in.
X-ray crystallography
Fox Lab: Understanding competitive protein-protein complex formation in oxidative multicomponent enzymes
The controlled generation of reactive oxygen has allowed certain organisms to grow in a multitude of harsh environments. The ability of these organisms to oxidize C-H bonds allows them to obtain carbon from otherwise inert or toxic compounds. This chemistry requires metal cofactors to activate molecular oxygen, and multiple protein-protein interactions to control the delivery …