Since it was powder diffraction that made me fall in love with crystallography as an undergrad (before switching to protein crystallography as a grad student), I was obviously very excited when I first heard about protein powder diffraction in a meeting some years ago, in a lecture by Andy Fitch from the ESRF. I've exchanged some mails with him and also Irene Margiolaki, who were very kind and sent me lots of unpublished stuff and experimental hints (sample preparation is probably the most difficult part in protein powder diffraction). A good idea would be to contact them (it may be easy to find their info in the ESRF website).
The GSAS groups was also working on this, and the major difference, from what I remember, is that they were doing all the process (until refinement) in the same way that was done with regular powder samples (with a modified version of the GSAS program), while the group in ESRF converted the powder data to MTZs and then used PX software. By that time it seemed that they were the only groups doing it, but a quick search in pubmed using "protein powder diffraction" shows some recent articles from other groups, so it seems it's pretty much alive. The following articles are from 2011: X-ray diffraction from membrane protein nanocrystals. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21190672 Exploiting powder X-ray diffraction for direct structure determination in structural biology: the P2X4 receptor trafficking motif YEQGL. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21382498 Lucas Bleicher 2011/11/26 REX PALMER <rex.pal...@btinternet.com>: > Does anyone have an up-to-date account of protein structure anlysis from > powders? > > > Rex Palmer > http://www.bbk.ac.uk/biology/our-staff/emeritus-staff > http://rexpalmer2010.homestead.com
