BIOXHIT is a scientific project funded by the European Commission, which aims at making the determination of three-dimensional structures of biomolecules much easier. More than 20 research groups on bio-crystallography from all over Europe work on this collaboratively.

Bio-Crystallography is the most important technique for determining three-dimensional structures of biomolecules and it is the centre of attention of BIOXHIT.

Only when the three-dimensional structure of a biomolecule is known, we can understand its function. Since all functions in a cell, in an organ or in a whole organism depend on interacting biomolecules, we must know the structures of all of them, before we can fully understand how they work together, and what goes wrong in case of a disease.

Synchrotron radiation is electromagnetic radiation of very high energy, which is produced when electrons (or positrons) are sent around a circle at a speed close to the speed of light in a machine called synchrotron.

Synchrotron radiation is extremely intense and provides X-ray that are hundreds of thousands of times higher than conventional X-ray that is needed for a close enough look at biomolecules.

BIOXHIT wants to make the process of using synchrotron radiation for bio-crystallography so easy, that even non-specialists can do it.

For the first time all European synchrotrons and the forefront of researchers in bio-crystallography are working together to achieve the one common goal: to make bio-crystallography easy.

The more structures of biomolecules are known, the easier it will be to understand what is really going on inside cells, organs and organisms, and the easier it will be to develop new drugs against all sorts of diseases.

The BIOXHIT project runs for four years (January 2004 – December 2007) and its total budget is about 40,000,000 Euro. The European Commission supports the project with funds amounting to about 10,000,000 Euro as a grant to the budget. The rest will be contributed by the partners working together on the Bioxhit project.

More information, e.g. project news and the current status can be obtained from the BIOXHIT website at www.bioxhit.org that will be regularly updated or from Daniela Jänicke (daniela.jaenicke@embl-hamburg.de)