Publisher's Synopsis
During the past decade a substantial number of synchrotron facilities have been established worldwide. The extraordinary and unique characteristics of synchrotron radiation in terms of brightness, collimation, and unlimited tunability have opened up tremendous opportunities for biosciences, notably in the study of the structures, functions, and dynamics of biological objects. This book presents state-of-the-art reviews and up-to-date progress reports on the use of sychrotron radiation for research in the biosciences. It is based on lectures presented at the Fourth International Conference on Biophysics and Synchrotron Radiation which was held in Tsukuba, Japan, under the auspices of the Japanese Biophysical Society, in 1992. It discusses advances in the application of synchrotron radiation to biophysics and medicine, of interest to researchers from many diverse fields.;Since the first application of synchrotron radiation to biology in the 1970s for X-ray diffraction from muscle, the field has advanced considerably. One recent application is X-ray micro-imaging. This permits imaging of unstained, wet, and unsectioned biospecimens, allowing observation of living cells. Medical advances include angiography and computerized tomography. The volume is divided into nine parts covering the following topics: crystallographic studies on macromolecular structure, solution X-ray scattering, biology with neutron radiation, biological X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy, X-ray beamlines and detectors, structural studies on muscle proteins, muscle contraction, and filamentous viruses, X-ray microimaging, medical applications of synchrotron radiation: angiography, computerized tomography, and others, and radiation biophysics using synchrotron radiation.
