Developer Tales

The Lure of the Sandbox

A little over a decade ago, Paul Emsley, biochemistry professor at the University of Oxford, was looking to ditch his white coat. What he really wanted was to spend more time programming in the computer lab. “I was happy using existing software tools,” ...

Members Tales

Borden Lacy

While the bacterial toxin that causes anthrax has been used as a deadly biological weapon, from a scientific point of view, it has an upside. "The nice thing about anthrax is that separate proteins make up the toxin," says Borden Lacy. "So long as you ...

Applications Tales

Unstructured

Sit down in front of a newly installed copy of CCP4 today, and you will find approximately 250 computer programs for solving protein structures. The list of programs includes several with catchy names, such as beast (for molecular replacement), dimple ...