Time-resolved structural information is key to understand the mechanism of biological processes, such as catalysis and signalling. Recent developments in X-ray sources as well as data collection and analysis methods are making routine time-resolved X-ray crystallography and solution scattering experiments a real possibility for structural biologists. Here we review the information that can be obtained from these techniques and discuss the considerations that must be taken into account when designing a time-resolved experiment.

A new method for performing time-resolved X-ray crystallographic experiments based on the Hadamard Transform is proposed and demonstrated. The time-resolution is defined by the underlying periodicity of the probe pulse sequence and the signal to noise is greatly improved compared to the fastest experiments depending on a single pulse. This approach is general and equally applicable to any spectroscopic or imaging measurement where the probe can be encoded.