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X-ray crystallography in the spotlight
Radio New Zealand's Ruth Beran goes to Massey University to meet Geoff Jameson and IRL’s Graeme Gainsford who explain what x-ray diffraction and crystallography is, how it’s done, and what it can be used to measure.
Geoff Jameson (left) and Graeme Gainsford discuss x-ray crystallography on Radio New Zealand National's Our Changing World programme.
In the 1950s, New Zealand born Maurice Wilkins, together with James Watson and Francis Crick (and with some help from Rosalind Franklin) determined the double helix structure of DNA using a technique called x-ray crystallography. The three men won the Nobel Prize for their work.
X-ray crystallography is still used today, to determine, for example, the precise configuration of chemical compounds like pharmaceuticals, but the advent of modern computing means that diffraction calculations are much faster.
(From the Radio New Zealand National website. Visit the site to listen to the Our Changing World interview.)