Virtual screening to facilitate structure-based drug design

Encompasses and uses the CSIRO Biomolecular Interaction Facility and the CSIRO Bio21 Crystallisation Centre to screen libraries of fragments as the first step towards rational drug design

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy determines the structures of molecules ranging from small chemicals to macromolecular proteins and nucleic acids. The NMR Facility contains eight NMR spectrometers available to academic and industry users on a fee for use basis. The massive 800 MHz high-field NMR spectrometer equipped with cyroprobe technology is signficant in its size and capability.

The Australian Synchrotron is a source of highly intense light ranging from infrared to hard x-rays used for a wide variety of research purposes. Officially opened in July 2007, the Australian Synchrotron is one of fewer than 40 similar facilities around the world. It is the largest stand-alone piece of [...]

X-ray diffraction provides a key methodology for determining the three dimensional structure of biological macromolecules to atomic or near atomic detail. However, before an X-ray diffraction experiment can be performed crystals of the molecule of interest are required. Efficient production of high-quality protein crystals for structure determination is one of [...]

The CSIRO Collaborative Crystallisation Centre (C3) is a full service protein crystallisation centre specialising in both screening and optimisation. C3 provides both expert and novice users access to technologies which will enable the rapid and efficient sampling of crystallisation space. Our core competency is high-throughput small volume (sub-microlitre) dispensing coupled with automatic imaging, but our strength lies in our ease of use, range of services and expert advice.

The VLSCI Peak Computing Facility (PCF) is a significant investment in high performance computing, providing computer processing infrastructure and computational expertise, accessible to Victorian Life Sciences researchers. Hosted at the University of Melbourne and accessible only through a remote network, the PCF includes the supercomputers and a team of skilled [...]

The CD spectromometer shines polarised light at proteins and allows analysis of protein secondary structure from circular dichroism spectra – for example a-helices and ß-sheets (far UV spectrum) – and aids monitoring of protein folding and conformational changes prior to using more expensive and time consuming methods such as NMR [...]