Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)’s department of Physics has acquired a Nano-inXider SAXS/WAXS instrument from Xenocs to perform in-house Bio-SAXS & WAXS experiments. The instrument installed in July 2019 at KAIST’s Integrative biophysics and Structural biology lab will be used for applications related to solution scattering of proteins and complexes.
“We have a lot of projects that we can perform with the Xenocs Nano-inXider. Typically, our applications are Bio-SAXS / WAXS”, Prof. Seung Joong Kim who is in charge of the lab explains. “We focus on biophysical and structural study of proteins and their complexes in solution, obtaining size and shape information that can be used for integrative modeling. We aim to study protein dynamics by Bio-SAXS under various conditions, such as conformational changes and protein allostery in drug discovery.”
The lab is also interested in self-assembly process of proteins (monomers to dimers, trimers, or even larger forms of fiber structures). Structural and biophysical study of protein-ligand binding and macromolecular complexes also falls into the scope of future applications.
“We may also perform SAXS/WAXS on proteins in a powder or crystal array, rather than in solution. This includes a study of material surfaces by GISAXS”, Prof Seung Joong Kim adds. “I am pretty sure that we will have more applications in the future, depending on projects and biological systems that we’re interested in.”
The Nano-inXider will be open to academic research groups in Korea and other countries.
Dr. Seung Joong KIM with the Nano-inXider SAXS/WAXS instrument
About KAIST Integrative Biophysics and Structural Biology Lab
Website: https://ibsb.kaist.ac.kr
Contact: kim.sj@kaist.ac.kr
