Biological sciences with neutron beams

Neutrons are becoming an important tool for studying the structural basis of biomolecular function revealing details of structure, functionally important conformations, and interactions. More powerful neutron sources and new instrumentation are coming available which enable more rapid data acquisition on smaller samples. At the same time, advances in molecular biology facilitating easier preparation of samples have made more biological molecules suitable for study by neutron techniques. I will briefly review the contributions of neutrons to biology and discuss the future. To demonstrate the power of neutrons in biology, I will highlight recent neutron scattering studies that have advanced our understanding of the mechanisms underlying calcium regulated biological function. (author)