The power of three

The Executive Committee of the International Union of Crystallography recently approved the appointment of Dr Zbigniew Dauter as joint Section Editor of Acta Crystallographica Section F: Structural Biology Communications. This is great news for the journal, authors and readers. Zbyszek has been active in crystallography for more than 40 years. He started out investigating structures of small organic compounds with potential medical applications and obtained his PhD in 1975 from the Technical University of Gdansk, Poland. His scientific interests shifted over time to macromolecular crystallography and he has since been involved in the structure elucidation of over 70 proteins, among them electron-transfer metalloproteins such as rubredoxin and ferredoxin; proteinases from the subtilisin and trypsin families and their inhibitors; various other enzymes such as dUTPases, dehydrogenases, glycosyl hydrolases, aldolases, HIV reverse transcriptase; and larger complexes such as photosystem II or carnation mottle virus.

In addition to these achievements, Zbyszek is probably best known for his seminal contributions to the optimisation of diffraction data collection especially using synchrotron radiation. He has published several texts on this topic, presented numerous lectures and seminars, and served as a tutor in many data collection workshops. He participated in the development of the protocols for analysis and validation of protein structures at atomic resolution, and he is investigating how the weak resonant signal from anomalous scatterers, present or introduced into macromolecules, can be utilised most effectively for phasing purposes. He is the inventor of the quick soaking method using halides (bromide and iodide), a method which is widely know as dauterization of macromoleular crystals. More recently, he has developed an interest in exploiting radiation-damage signals for the phasing of macromolecular structures. In 2010 his work was recognised when he was awarded the highest science award from the Polish Academy of Sciences.

In total Zbyszek has authored or co-authored over 300 papers in international journals and he is one of only a few crystallographers who have published in all six Acta journals. We welcome Dr Dauter to Acta F very warmly.

This article is a short extract reprinted from an editorial published in the journal Acta Crystallographica Section F: Structural Biology Communications