X-Ray Diffraction Imaging of Biological Cells

Masayoshi Nakasako is a professor at Keio University, whose work chiefly involves the structural analysis of soft matter. After receiving his Doctor of Science from Tohoku University in 1990, he served as a research associate at the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, as a researcher at RIKEN, as a lecturer at the University of Tokyo’s Institute of molecular and Cellular Biosciences, and as an assistant professor at Keio University in 2002. In 2005, he was promoted to his present position. Currently, he is also a guest researcher at RIKEN’s Spring-8 Center.His primary research interest is in imaging protein hydration, protein structures, and cells by means of molecular dynamics simulations and various physicochemical experimental techniques including X-ray imaging using synchrotron radiation and X-ray free electron lasers.

• Introduction.- X-ray diffraction.- Theory of X-ray diffraction imaging.- Diffraction apparatus for X-ray diffraction imaging.- Specimen preparation for X-ray diffraction imaging experiments at cryogenic temperature.- Processing of diffraction patterns obtained from X-ray diffraction imaging experiments using X-ray free electron laser pulses.-  Phase retrieval of diffraction patterns.- Projection structures of biological cells and organelles.- Three-dimensional structural analyses in cryogenic X-ray diffraction imaging.- Prospects for the structural analysis of biological specimens by X-ray diffraction imaging.