Proteins!

Hey!
I'm in Germany doing structural biology research, which is exceedingly awesome. I've been working in the lab for 2 weeks so far, and have run 3 columns, and 3 gels. I have also grown 48L of bacteria. Goopy.
Basically, I'm trying to figure out the structure of a protein called XPD, which is a 5'-3' DNA helicase involved in DNA repair pathways. It is a component of TFIIH, so its presence is also required for general transcription. When this protein gets screwed up, there are 3 possible diseases that can result depending on exactly how the protein is damaged - XP, characterized by extreme sensitivity to UV light because the cells can't repair the DNA when the UV light makes photodimers (wear sunscreen!), CS/XP, which has XP symptoms along with developmental defects, and then TTD, characterized by premature aging - this happens when XPD is so damaged that it can't form a complex with the rest of TFIIH, and transcription in general is impaired.
So, it would be cool to figure out how the protein works, how different mutations lead to the different disease phenotypes, etc.
Three structures of the protein in different archaeal organisms have been solved, and I'm trying to get the protein from a different archaea, purify it, and crystallize it with DNA (which hasn't been done yet) to see it in action. End result, if everything goes perfectly and I don't light any fires, will be a pretty 3D structure of the protein.
I'll also get to learn how to do some really cool biophysics techniques, like using fluorescence anisotropy to see DNA binding, ITC to measure heats of binding and binding constants... this summer will be most excellent. :D