Structural biologists have quietly encroached on the turf of material sciences. According to Ari Patrinos, associate director for biological and environmental research at the US Department of Energy, protein structure researchers have usurped more and more time on synchrotons in the past decade. Life sciences activity at synchrotron light sources ballooned from less than five percent of total experiments in 1990 to more than 40 percent in 2000.