Message

The concept of this new Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas “Molecular Movies” is simple and clear; this is a four-dimensional version of “Seeing is believing”.

The reason why I became a structural biologist was because it is most direct to show the structures to understand the functions of macro molecules than piling up many indirect evidences. The same applies to the dynamics of molecules and that is the basic concept of “molecular movies”; visualizing the movement of molecules on an actual time scale with atomic resolution.

This is something that anybody think of, but this became possible for the first time by using an X-ray free electron laser, extremely powerful X-ray pulses of 10 fs duration. However, at present, there are a number of limitations for this method, such as samples must be crystallized or the reaction must be triggered by light.

The first objective of this research area is to remove these limitations as much as possible from the “Molecular Movies” technique and establish it as a universal method for a wide range of macromolecules. To achieve this, we will make full use of technologies such as beamline engineering, protein engineering, and chemical biology. The second objective is to use these observations to control macromolecules. “Molecular Movies” will be analyzed quantitatively and theoretically using computational sciences and spectroscopy. By creating proteins and small molecular compounds with additional or new functions, we are hoping to contribute to a wide range of fields such as imaging, optogenetics, and optopharmacology.