The Department of Structural Biology seeks to understand the structure and function of macromolecules through structure determination by X-ray crystallography, NMR, electron microscopy, theoretical analyses, and a wide range of correlative biochemical and genetic studies of function. Problems currently under study include molecular recognition by the immune system, cellular recognition by adhesion molecules, structure and activity of molecular chaperones, structure and mechanism of ribozymes, transcriptional mechanisms, and protein folding.

The department is well-equipped for experimental biochemistry and molecular biology. In addition, facilities available for structural and theoretical studies include electron microscopes, a diffractometer, a multiwire area detector and image plate for X-ray diffraction, several workstations with high-level graphics for molecular modelling and theoretical studies, a flow cytometer, a DNA sequencer, a protein sequencer and state of the art NMR facilities.