The purpose of these projects is to
develop and implement new methodologies for elucidating
the structures and dynamics of complex macromolecular
machines, especially those undergoing large-scale structural
rearrangements as part of their normal function. Examples
currently under study are the actin cytoskeleton and
the spliceosome (the macromolecular machine responsible
for excising introns from nascent transcripts in eukaryotic
cells). Both machines are subject ot dynamic assembly
and disassembly pathways, and spliceosome function is
thought to require further structural rearrangements
within the fully assembled complex.
