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Tiny microbes and molecular machines have an outsized impact on human health, and they play key roles in the vast global cycles that shape climate and make carbon and nitrogen available to all living things. 

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Science of life

This illustration shows arrestin, an important type of signaling protein

News Feature

System Studied at SLAC's Synchrotron Mimics Steps in Photosynthesis

Image - This illustration of a model molecular complex mimics the final step in the cycle of photosynthesis: oxygen release.
News Feature

Experiment at SLAC's X-ray Laser Opens Door to Exploring Cell Interiors

Image - These micrograph images show rod-shaped bacterial cells suspended in pure water. The dark rectangular shapes inside the cells correspond to naturally occurring crystals within the cells.
News Feature

Chris Pollock Adapted Technique to Study Biomolecules in More Detail

Image - Chris Pollock monitors an experiment at SLAC's Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource. (Courtesy of Chris Pollock)
News Feature

SLAC Experiment Provides New Insight About How Electrons Move Across Molecules

Researchers used SLAC's LCLS X-ray laser to stimulate and measure the electron-transfer process inside a severed methyl iodide molecule.
News Feature

Exploding Soccer Ball-shaped Molecules Will Help Biological Studies

Image - Buckyballs, molecules composed of 60 carbon atoms, bust apart as they are struck by intense X-ray pulses at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source. (Greg Stewart/SLAC)
Press Release

SLAC Research Reveals Rapid DNA Changes that Act as Molecular Sunscreen

Illustration showing a thymine molecule, DNA helix and the sun.
News Feature

Even in their infancy, X-ray lasers such as SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source are notching a list of important discoveries, and a special issue...

Image - This illustration represents data derived from 175,000 X-ray diffraction patterns of Trapanosoma brucei cathepsin B, a protein relevant to African sleeping sickness, measured with X-ray pulses at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source. (CFEL)
Press Release

By finding surprising similarities in the way immune system defenders bind to disease-causing invaders, a new study may help scientists develop new treatments.

Conceptual art - see caption
News Feature

Researchers have discovered that an Ebola virus protein can transform into three distinct structures with different functions. This rather uncommon property provides new clues...

ebola protein
News Feature

Given a year to mature, the Institute for Chemical Biology is relaunching under a new name that better reflects its vision of bringing Stanford's...

News Feature

Five years ago, the brightest source of X-rays on the planet lit up at SLAC. The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser's scientific...

Image - Some of the LCLS team members stand by the newly installed undulators in this 2009 photo. From right: Mike Zurawel, Geoff Pile from Argonne National Laboratory, Paul Emma, Dave Schultz, Heinz-Dieter Nuhn and Don Schafer. (Brad Plummer)
News Feature

X-ray studies conducted at SLAC and in the United Kingdom have resurrected the detailed chemistry of 50-million-year-old leaves from fossils found in the western...

A composite optical and X-ray image (red is copper, green is zinc, blue is nickel) of a 50-million-year-old leaf fossil. Trace metals correlate with the leaf's original biological structures. Also visible are ancient caterpillar feeding tubes.