Photosynthetic light harvesting: Three decades of research in motion

Klaus Shulten has been studying the different components of the chromatophore for more than three decades. This multidisciplinary project involves experimentalists doing high-resolution imaging using many kinds of experimental imaging modalities, computer scientists who write software to simulate the structures, and many biophysicists, physicists, and chemists that study the actual science of how these machines work.

The cellular process responsible for providing energy for most life on Earth — photosynthetic light-harvesting — requires the cooperation of hundreds of proteins across an organelle, involving length and time scales spanning several orders of magnitude over quantum and classical regimes.

The Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group and the Center for the Physics of Living Cells at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, US, received the SC14 visualization showcase award at the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis. The movie is the culmination of three decades of modeling efforts, featuring the collaboration of theoretical, experimental, and computational scientists.

Today, even the best human-made solar cells are only 15-25% efficient in converting the energy of light into electricity. But this naturally evolving organism reaches near 96% efficiency under much more adverse conditions. Its complex internal machinery even enables it to repair itself. Scientists and engineers hope to one day develop synthetic light harvesting apparatuses that can offset the 15-terawatt-per-year energy demand made by humans worldwide.

- Amber Harmon