Science Highlights

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 Insight into the Regulation of the SNARE Assembly by the Cell Polarity Protein Sro7

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The mechanics of a basic cellular process found in most living organisms, including humans, is less of a mystery, thanks to work done by Douglas Hattendorf and collaborators, in part at t

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Structural Polymorphism of the Actin-Espin System: A Prototypical System of Filaments and Linkers in Sterocilia

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Scientists exploring the physics of hearing have found an underlying molecular cause for one form of deafness.

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Yttrium Dopants in Titania: Not Structurally Incorporated but Bound at Surfaces

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How a Single T Cell Receptor Recognizes Both Self and Foreign MHC

Adaptive immunity relies on the capacity of immune cells to distinguish between the body's own cells and foreign invaders. T-cells are the foot soldiers of the immune system, and they carry receptors that undergo an extensive "education" process for recognizing specific proteins from these invaders.

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Structure of a Putative Metal-Chelate Type ABC Transporter: An Inward-facing Conformation

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Scientists from Caltech have solved the crystal structure of an ATP-binding Cassette (ABC) transporter called HI1470/1 from the bacteria Haemophilus influenzae.

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How to Turn Carbon into a Magnet? X-ray and Protons Give the Answer!

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The exclusive club of magnetic elements officially has a new member-carbon.

How Might a Pre-biotic Ribozyme Catalyze RNA Assembly in an RNA World?

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Researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, using macromolecular crystallography beam line 9-1 at SSRL have determined the three-dimensional structure of an RNA enzyme, or "rib

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High Resolution Structure of the Neisseria gonorrhoeae Type IV Pilus: A Membrane-bound Fibrous Assembly

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A team of researchers working at SSRL has determined the atomic structure of an assemblage of fiber-forming proteins found in the cell membranes of many dangerous types of bacteria.

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Ancient Warriors and the Origin of Chinese Purple

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In 1974, while sinking irrigation wells in the Chinese province of Shaanxi, a group of farmers made an astonishing archeological discovery.

Defining How Botulinum Toxin Binds to the Synaptotagmin Receptor and Creating Improved Therapeutics to Block Toxicity

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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. 

SSRL User Office