One campus, four institutes

What structural biology is

Every living cell runs on molecules: proteins that act as tools and motors, DNA and RNA that store and pass on instructions. What these molecules do depends on their three-dimensional shape. Structural biology is the science of working out those shapes, atom by atom, and of understanding how they change as the molecules do their work. The scientists of the Grenoble campus present it as a basis for understanding disease and for developing diagnostics, vaccines and medicines.

On the Grenoble campus, such shapes are studied with X-rays, neutrons and electron microscopes, which is why biologists settled next to the two big machines.

How the campus grew

The ILL came first: it was founded in 1967 and delivered its first neutrons in 1971. In 1975 the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) set up an outstation next to it to study biological problems with neutrons. The ESRF, established in 1988, brought a major expansion of the site.

In 1992 the French research bodies CEA and CNRS founded the Institut de Biologie Structurale (IBS) to use the ESRF and the ILL for structural biology; it moved onto the campus in 2013. The ESRF dates the creation of the EPN campus to 2010, the same year it and the ILL launched a second partnership, for soft condensed matter.

EMBL Grenoble

EMBL Grenoble specialises in structural biology research, instrument development and services. Its research groups work mainly on RNA biology and infection biology, such as how proteins and RNA work together and how pathogens interact with their hosts. Its technology teams offer crystallisation, X-ray crystallography, small-angle scattering, cryo-electron microscopy and the screening of small molecules for drug development.

Its history tracks the campus. The first head, Andrew Miller, led the outstation from 1975 to 1980, the year its building opened; Stephen Cusack headed it from 1989 to 2022. From 1996 EMBL and the ESRF ran a joint structural biology group on the synchrotron’s beamlines, and in 2014 MASSIF-1 opened, which EMBL describes as the first automated beamline dedicated to structural biology. EMBL Grenoble celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2025.

The IBS

The IBS is a joint research unit of the CEA, the CNRS and Université Grenoble Alpes. It studies the structure and dynamics of proteins and other biological molecules to understand how they work at the level of atoms and inside cells, with topics ranging from how cells defend themselves against infection to DNA repair and cancer, as well as membrane transport and how molecules adapt to extreme environments.

Working together

Since 2002 the four institutes have been linked through the Partnership for Structural Biology. Since 2006 they have shared the Carl-Ivar Brändén Building on the campus, which houses the partners and their technical platforms. Between them they offer synchrotron beamlines for structural biology, cryo-electron microscopy and spectroscopy, as well as neutron instruments at the ILL: two small-angle neutron scattering instruments, two for neutron crystallography and laboratories that replace hydrogen with deuterium in biological samples.

In 2022 a new beamline, ID29, opened for time-resolved serial crystallography, a technique that the ESRF says allows reactions to be followed in real time. A cryo-electron microscope, CM01, bought by the ESRF, is run jointly by the partners. Neutron crystallography can locate hydrogen atoms in proteins, which is explained on Two ways of seeing atoms.

Why one campus

Few biological questions can be answered by one technique alone. On this campus, X-ray beamlines, neutron instruments, deuteration laboratories and electron microscopes are all within walking distance. The 2025 review of the campus by its scientists stresses exactly this: combining X-ray and neutron scattering, cryo-electron microscopy, spectroscopy and computer modelling.

Where it is

The ESRF’s address is 71 avenue des Martyrs, Grenoble. Tram line B ends at the Oxford stop, 350 metres from the site entrance. The campus is a working research site, not a visitor attraction; how groups can visit is on Science Travel.