Two very exiting experimental reports have been published on the application of an X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) at Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS, Stanford, USA). An international research team led by Dr. H. Chapman (DESY, Hamburg, Germany) and Professor J. Hajdu (Uppsala University, Sweden) has demonstrated a new advanced stage of protein crystallography, which uses only tiny proteins instead of preparing large-size crystals. This could open up new possibilities for the analysis of proteins that have been difficult or even impossible to prepare so far. The technique has been basically known as coherent X-ray diffraction imaging. The present research is the first experimental application of extremely brilliant femtosecond XFEL pulses. In addition to the demonstration of snapshots of nano-crystalline proteins, they have reported the first single-shot images of intact viruses. For more information, see the papers, "Femtosecond X-ray protein nanocrystallography", H. N. Chapman et al., Nature, 470, 73 (2011) and "Single mimivirus particles intercepted and imaged with an X-ray laser", M. M. Seibert et al., Nature, 470, 78 (2011).
