Here we focus on proteins and how resolving their structural features can help us understand their roles in life processes A protein's structure and its function are interdependent. A major way of controlling or suppressing a particular disease is to interfere with a protein's function. To control a protein's action specifically, it is necessary to understand its structure at the atomic level. However by identifying the proteins that cause harm to a living system, scientists can design specific drugs to inhibit or activate the action of these proteins. Designing small molecules to fit or stick to these critical places on the protein and alter their function is called rational drug design.
Proteins are the targets of rational drug design.
One of the best methods of getting a protein's chemical and structural information is by X-ray crystallography, which requires that we produce fairly large, almost perfect crystals. As with other crystals, the X-ray diffraction quality of a protein crystal will depend on the degree of alignment of the individual protein molecules in each crystal. The production of perfect protein crystals is very difficult and time-consuming. Crystals of solid materials may be formed by a number of different processes. Crystallization of biological macromolecules is always done using the third process.