BUFFALO, NY, January 26, 2005 -- Dr. Herbert Hauptman, Buffalo's Nobel Laureate and President of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, along with colleagues and HWI research scientists Drs. David Langs and Hongliang Xu were invited guests at two meetings in Japan to discuss their new methods development research in Neutron Crystallography. The first part of the trip was spent at an International Workshop on Neutron Research at the University of Tokyo and concluded with a satellite meeting at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) and Ibaraki University in Tokai, Japan.

Dr. Hauptman along with Drs. Langs and Xu are currently working on the development of new methods for structure determination using neutron diffraction. This project, in its early stages, has the potential to create more powerful techniques for addressing biological problems such as molecular structure determination. In conjunction with this work, HWI's Team will be joining with Dr. Nobuo Niimura from JAERI and Ibaraki University in Japan, Dr. Alberto Podjarny from Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire (IGBMC) in France, and Andreas Ostermann from Technische Universität München in Germany to submit a joint proposal in fund their collaborative efforts in neutron diffraction. Additionally, JAERI is in the process of building a neutron source that can be utilized to apply these new methods once they are developed as well as other experimentation.

A mathematician by training, Dr. Hauptman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1985 for his development of the formula known as “direct methods”, where his application of classical mathematics finally resolved an issue that had defeated generations of chemists. Utilizing the direct methods technique, the structures of thousands of molecules have now been solved and new structures are added to the list each year. As a result, many new drugs to combat some of society’s deadliest diseases, heart disease, cancer, and high blood pressure, have now been designed. Dr. Herbert A. Hauptman has been a member of the HWI staff since 1970.

Founded in 1956, the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute (HWI) is an independent, non-profit facility specializing in the area of basic research known as structural biology. Located in the heart of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, immediately adjacent to downtown, our staff of almost 60 individuals is committed to improving human health by studying the causes of diseases, as well as potential therapies, at their basic molecular level. Today, HWI is building a new state-of-the-art Structural Biology Research Center located at 700 Ellicott Street. It is expected to be complete by March 2005. For more information visit HWI's web site at www.hwi.buffalo.edu.