Public Lecture

What is X-ray Crystallography and how did it transform our view of the world?

Just over a hundred years ago a narrow beam of X-rays was fired at a crystal for the very first time. The experiment, an early attempt to investigate the nature of this recently discovered radiation, showed that it was wavelike and so constituted a new type of light. Although that was in itself a profound discovery, scientists realised immediately that the far more interesting outcome of the experiment was the revelation that X-rays could be used to 'see' the atomic structure of matter in three dimensions at a level of detail beyond the reach of even the most powerful microscopes. 

The technique of X-ray crystallography, first used to work out the atomic structure of simple crystals and minerals, has since been applied to the far more elaborate molecular structures found in chemistry and biology. It is arguably one of the greatest scientific advances of the 20th century. In this lecture I will recount the curious origin of the technique (including its Australian roots), explain how it works and discuss how crystallography opened up an entirely new landscape for scientists to explore. 

About the speaker: Stephen Curry, a native of Northern Ireland, is a Professor of Structural Biology at Imperial College London where he teaches life sciences to both undergraduate and postgraduate students. His current research focus is structural analysis—mainly using X-ray crystallography—of the molecular basis of replication in RNA viruses such as foot-and-mouth disease virus and noroviruses (which include the infamous ‘winter vomiting bug’).

Stephen is a founding member and vice-chair of Science is Vital, a UK group that campaigns on scientific issues, and he is also on the Board of Directors of the Campaign for Science and Engineering. Curry is also a regular science writer. Since 2008 he has been writing regularly about his research and scientific life, both past and present, on his Reciprocal Space blog (http://occamstypewriter.org/scurry/) and the Guardian newspaper (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/stephen-curry). Stephen has a particular interest in the history of X-ray crystallography and he has made several short films on the subject in collaboration with the Royal Institution (http://www.richannel.org/collections/2013/crystallography).