It was my grandparents' generations' dream that there be a church. She still lives in L.A. and her 30-mile commute to CSUF has become routine. It was there that she found a niche in crystallography. From the pictures, patterns emerge which allow the crystallographer to determine the structure of the crystal's molecules. The purpose of x-ray diffraction is to produce an image, a physical model of what a particular molecule looks like.
Molecular structure is critical to understanding the function of molecules.
It is important in medical and pharmaceutical fields because it helps researchers understand the mechanism of a disease and how to counteract it. But to the untrained eye, a look inside CSUF's x-ray diffraction laboratory can be intimidating. Radiation warning signs are everywhere. Each system is housed in a rectangular metal cabinet with glass doors that can be closed to contain radiation during the x-ray diffraction procedure. Computers connected to the system provide pictures of the diffraction patterns and, following a complex process of refinement, are used to determine the structure of the crystal molecule being studied.