Biophysical methods: doing more with less.

Brian’s research focuses on the development of tools (particularly mass spectrometry) to study cellular function. Subjects under study in his laboratory include nucleocytoplasmic transport, cell cycle control, DNA replication and chromatin remodeling. Experimental developments in modern structural biology are largely methods driven, as examination of the structural and computational reviews in any other results-oriented issue of Current Opinion in Structural Biology will confirm. This particular section has historically focused on the methods themselves, both to highlight emerging new experimental approaches and to re-examine the status of old favorites (and ‘old’ in this context may mean no more than of a few years standing). We have selected topics that are having (or promise to have) an increasingly important impact on structural biology studies. Unsurprisingly, assembly of the set of independently completed topics reveals linkages between some of them; a pregnant phrase in one points to a paragraph in another.