David O.-N.

Hi! My name is David, I’m a rising junior, and I was an intern in session one of the Fred Hutch Pathways Explorers program! In the short two weeks that I spent at the Hutch, I got to explore and discover so many different areas of research, labs, and cores that go on here. All of these have incredible things going on that are each worth their own dedicated articles about them, but here I will be focusing on one of my favorite things that I saw during my tine here: the Stoddard Lab!

The Stoddard Lab at Fred Hutch is led by one Dr. Barry L. Stoddard, a published author, expert in protein structure, and professor of biochemistry at the UW, who has been working on X-ray crystallography for decades! But before I can dive into my experience with this lab, I will first give a quick summary of the research that goes on there.

Lab bench where protein crystals are examined in the Stoddard Lab

The primary focus of the Stoddard Lab is the structural biology of proteins and how they interact inside the bodies of organisms. Understanding the native structure, or shape, of a protein can be used to develop new therapies, biotechnology, and to analyze the effects of different mutations. The lab uncovers protein structures through X-ray crystallography where a specific protein is crystallized and an X-ray laser is shone through it to generate a diffraction image that reveals the structure of the protein. Using this technique, Dr. Stoddard and his colleagues can research the functions, structures, and potential new uses of both natural and engineered proteins and enzymes.

The X-ray diffractometer used for X-ray crystallography in Dr. Stoddard’s lab

The work going on in this lab is truly remarkable, and I cannot give it justice in just this short blog post, so please check out the lab’s page directly for more information! With that out of the way, I can now finally give an account of my experience with the lab! At the end of the first week of my internship, Dr. Stoddard first gave a talk about his research, life story, and how he ended up becoming an X-ray crystallographer during the 1980s when the field was just starting. One part of this talk that fascinated me the most was how he joined a biotech startup that worked to grow protein crystals in outer space during the Cold War!

After his talk, he gave our cohort a tour of his X-ray crystallography lab where we got to see actual protein crystal samples loaded into the diffractometer and real data being collected. The protein crystal had to be held at a temperature hundreds of degrees below zero, and the actual machine had a mount for the crystal and an X-ray beam that was aimed directly at the crystal. The mount was then spun around to record the diffraction image of the crystal which we got to see being plotted in real time on a computer monitor.

Dr. Stoddard operates the X-ray diffractometer, with data collection of the protein crystal underway

I really enjoyed having this experience at his lab! Getting to see how the structures of proteins are determined was so amazing. I absolutely love computational biology and biophysics, so seeing actual research in this area being done interested me so much. I am a big fan of the online game Foldit (which you should play), where players design their own protein structures, and I first got interested in structural biology from this game. Coincidently, Dr. Stoddard is a contributor to the development of this game, so getting to know him and his research in person was an absolute delight! This lab was by far my favorite that I saw in this program, and if you ever get a chance, please take a look at the Stoddard Lab!