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the next

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shipment of supplies for the

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international space station is due to

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launch on sunday as mentioned and that

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dragon vehicle will be bringing supplies

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for the crew members plus station

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among those experiments are some

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focusing on protein crystal growth

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including one known as cpcghm

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for commercial protein crystal growth

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high density modified

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principal investigator is dr larry

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delucas the director of

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the center for structural biology at the

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university of alabama at birmingham who

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has a history of space-based research

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that includes his flight as a payload

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specialist on space shuttle mission

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sts-50 the first flight of the united

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states microgravity laboratory

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i spoke with him recently about this

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experiment and asked him to comment on

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the focus on membrane proteins in the

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human body we'll listen to that

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interview now this is mission control

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houston in our body in bacteria and

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viruses uh there's proteins that um

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exist in the membranes uh

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of of these uh organisms

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and in in the human system

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there's literally you know

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thousands of different membrane proteins

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and they play key roles uh biologically

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such as signal transduction when

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something happens outside a cell how

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does that information

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get imparted inside the cell to affect

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some other function within the cell

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they they

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they are critical in many many of the

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drugs that that we develop

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for different diseases um

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so

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the the unfortunate part of this is that

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if you look at how crystallography is

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used we crystallize the protein that

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we'd like to determine the structure for

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and membrane proteins are probably the

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most difficult ones of all to get

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not only to get a crystal but to get a

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crystal that is of high enough quality

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so that we can determine the

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three-dimensional structure using x-ray

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crystallography

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we have to make the crystals out of the

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proteins in order to study the structure

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itself and learn about how it functions

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exactly

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yeah and that's that's the you know kind

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of interesting and and it's fun to to

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crystallize the protein but the easy

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ones have been done in nature how do you

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grow these crystals in space and what's

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the station's uh the station cruise

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participation or the role in in growing

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these crystals while they're up there in

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space

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we know from previous experiments that

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the crystals grow much much more slowly

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because now the only thing that gets

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molecules to the crystal surface is

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just those natural vibration of

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molecules it's called free interface to

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well it's just called

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fixed law of diffusion they just vibrate

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bump into each other and make their way

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to the crystal but they grow literally

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in order of magnitude more slowly than

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they do here on earth which allows the

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molecule when it comes into the crystal

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to align itself more perfectly before

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the next one comes in and traps it in a

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misalignment wow that sounds fascinating

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that's what we're comparing is without

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you know buoyancy-induced convection

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which we get here on earth anytime we

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grow crystals by just letting the

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molecules slowly diffuse to the crystal

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you know not only we know we can get

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better crystals the question on this

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flight

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this is why we're flying a hundred of

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very difficult proteins to work with

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what percentage

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will be better and how much better will

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they be we want to statistically show

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you know once and for all the value of

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doing this and we have the advantage of

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a space station where the crystals will

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have plenty of time to grow to their

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full size so we have literally thousands

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of experiments going up so that each

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protein has multiple chances

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to try to get the very best crystals

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we're doing this also on the ground with

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ground controls using the same protein

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same batch everything everything's

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identical but we will not know when it

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returns in august which came from space

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and which are the ground controls

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everything has a barcode and only one

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engineer knows you know what's what

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it'll all be mixed together for each

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protein we'll do the entire analysis and

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when it's done

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only when we're completely finished will

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it be revealed which came from space and

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ground that way we eliminate any

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perceived bias that a scientist may

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choose a better crystal for space just

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to make it look better

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one

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other question that i would like to ask

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is uh why are the space grown crystals

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so important to have for research in the

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disease process and the drug development

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can you explain to

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um

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what the importance is for us

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and i want to point that out it's the

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one of the first steps the first step in

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drug development you know after you know

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the protein target is to design a a

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potential drug right that will interact

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with that protein by having the

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structure it makes it go much faster and

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usually you get a more

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effective drug with fewer side effects

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and there are many examples um not from

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space but from just ground-based

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research where drugs were developed

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using the structure of a protein

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it's sort of like if if you if you had

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to design a key right that would open my

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car door that's locked in the parking

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lot you know a locksmith has a key that

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will open all the car doors but if i

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showed him the structure of my lock he

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could make a key that would only unlock

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my car door by having the structure of

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the protein it helps you make a drug

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that's more specific so it interacts

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just with my protein and hopefully not

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others in our body because we literally

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have about a half million different

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proteins in our body when these drugs

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interact with proteins that you don't

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want them to that's how you

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very interesting again thank you larry

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for taking the time to talk with me

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good luck in the continued research and