Neutrons and Biology: Three Decades of Excitement and More to Come

Abstract

When the first issue of Neutron News appeared, many years had passed since the first Brookhaven Symposium on Neutrons in Biology took place. The Symposium was dedicated to neutron results on systems as diverse as proteins in crystals, membranes, collagen, muscle and protein-nucleic acid complexes crucial for gene expression such as chromatin and the ribosome [1]. And if, as intense recent interest suggests [2], we considered confined water studies to be part of Neutrons in Biology, we would find experiments from Harwell on water dynamics in clays from earlier [3]. With wonderful foresight, the 1975 symposium also included sessions on the preparation of deuterated specimens, inelastic scattering, position-sensitive detectors and pulsed sources, highlighting the importance of instrumental innovation for the field! Two years later, a workshop on Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) held in Villard-de-Lans, near Grenoble, gave rise to well remembered animated discussions involving competing groups using neutrons and X-rays.