William Zagotta traveled east to learn new techniques that helped him view cell structures in three dimensions.

After years of running his own laboratory, HHMI investigator William N. Zagotta went back to basics—he took time off to learn something altogether new in somebody else's lab.     Zagotta says he had reached a point where his research was stalled because he lacked certain technical skills. At the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Zagotta was studying the molecular mechanisms of ion channels, which he describes as "brain transistors," or proteins that produce electrical signals in the brain. But he needed to see the atomic structure of these molecules in three dimensions. He needed to learn the science and art of x-ray crystallography. continued...

Photo: Rex Rystedt

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Reprinted from the HHMI Bulletin,
March 2003, pages 20–23.
©2003 Howard Hughes Medical Institute