A team of researchers, headed by Isabel Usón, a research professor at the ICRA who works for the Institute of Molecular Biology (IBMB-CSIC), based at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB), has developed a new computational method that solves macromolecular structures by diffraction of X-rays from a single native data set (ab initio), without the need to carry out laborsome modifications in the crystals or measure these derivates. The results from this research work, titled "Crystallographic ab initio protein structure solution below atomic resolution" (doi:10.1038/nmeth.1365) have been published in Nature Methods.

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The method works with normal quality data in this type of measurements, whereas up until now, the ab inition solution had only been possible using exceptional data. The research has been made possible through the collaboration of researchers from Göttingen University and from the Max-Plank Institute of Biophysical Chemistry (Germany). The project has also been supported by the Catalan Institute of Statistics (IDESCAT).

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