Approximately 1,700 scientists visit SSRL annually to conduct experiments in broad disciplines including life sciences, materials, environmental science, and accelerator physics. Science highlights featured here and in our monthly newsletter, Headlines, increase the visibility of user science as well as the important contribution of SSRL in facilitating basic and applied scientific research. Many of these scientific highlights have been included in reports to funding agencies and have been picked up by other media. Users are strongly encouraged to contact us when exciting results are about to be published. We can work with users and the SLAC Office of Communication to develop the story and to communicate user research findings to a much broader audience.
Science Highlight Archive Science Highlight Banner Images
Structural Basis of Wnt Recognition by Frizzled
Wnts are a family of signaling proteins that regulate the development and growth of an organism, as well as tissue regeneration and wound healing.
Computational Design of Anti-flu Proteins
Understanding how proteins interact with some specific molecules and not with the myriad other molecules with which they coexist in every cellular compartment is a major goal of molecular biology.
SSRL X-rays Illuminate Frustrated Spin Liquid State
The electronic, spin, and ionic structures of closely packed atoms in solids are strongly co-dependent and interactions of these three lattices, whether innate or due to subtle manipulation, can cause exotic properties to emerge. The strong coupling among these lattices can also suppress a physical property through "frustration," the term for an incompatibility of symmetries.
Tuning the Metal-Adsorbate Chemical Bond through the Ligand Effect on Platinum Subsurface Alloys
SSRL Data Directs Prostate Cancer Drug Design
Prostate cancer, the most common cancer in men, is often a localized, slow-growing cancer, which aids treatment and improves survival rates.
Collaborate on Science Highlights
We can work with users and the SLAC Office of Communication to develop the story and to communicate user research findings to a much broader audience.